KARACHI: The Pak Rupee eased by five paisas against dollar on Tuesday owing to demand for import and corporate payments.
The rupee ended Rs166.68 to the dollar from last day’s closing of Rs166.63 in interbank foreign exchange market.
Currency experts said that dollar demand was remained higher for import and corporate payments. They said that due to ease in lockdown the domestic demand was increased substantially. However significant inflows prevented sharp decline in rupee value.
They said that improved foreign exchange reserves and lower import demand to help the rupee to gain in coming days.
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
