KARACHI: The Pak Rupee strengthened by 23 paisas against dollar on Friday owing to better inflows and improved foreign exchange reserves of the country.
The rupee ended 166.35 to the dollar from previous day’s closing of Rs166.58 in interbank foreign exchange market.
Currency experts said that the improved foreign inflows helped the helped the rupee to gain value.
The liquid foreign exchange of the country increased by $819 million to $18.79 billion by week ended July 03, 2020, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said a day ago.
The foreign exchange reserves of the country were at $17.971 billion a week ago ended on June 26, 2020.
The official reserves held by the SBP increased by $811 million to $12.042 billion by week ended July 03, 2020 as compared with $11.231 billion a week ago.
The SBP attributed the increase in reserves to proceeds of $1,000 million as GOP loan disbursement from China. During the week, SBP also made government external debt payments of $ 231.2 million.
The currency experts said that the lower import bill also helped the rupee to make gain.
According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) the import bill of the country fell by 18.6 percent to $44.57 billion as compared with $54.76 billion in the preceding fiscal year.
This helped the country to curtail the trade deficit for the year. The trade deficit of the country shrank by 27 percent to $23.18 billion during fiscal year 2019/2020 as compared with the deficit of $31.8 billion in the preceding fiscal year.
