KARACHI: The Pakistani currency on the back of deteriorating macroeconomic indicators, continue to lose ground and cumulatively depreciate against the US dollar.
The rupee further lost its value by 64 paisa against the US dollar and hit Rs160.50 in the interbank market at the early trade hours on Tuesday.
Within just two days, the rupee lost its value against the greenback by Rs1.71 in the interbank market, which in consequence has raised Pakistan’s external debt by Rs170 billion.
On Friday, the rupee lost its value by 30 paisa and closed at Rs158.79 against the greenback in the interbank market.
Despite after receiving the first tranche of $991.4 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Pakistani rupee has been observed to continue its downward trend against the US dollar.
The stringent conditions – on which the global moneylender has formally approved the bailout package of $6 billion for Pakistan – seem to have exerted more pressure on the local currency.
The gradual drop in the rupee came due to high demand for the dollar against thin supply as the country continued to make aggressive international payments to partially pay off huge foreign debt and for imports.
Economists are of the view that effective measures must be implemented on the priority basis to recover the state from the balance of payment deficit.
Besides increased demand of the greenback in the local market, they have termed ‘balance of payments deficit’ as the main reason in the recent hike in the value of the US dollar.
Moreover, they consider that state’s exports and investment are required to grow significantly, and the imports must be reduced to remove pressure on the local currency.
According to experts, the government must ensure implementations on economic policies after the deal with the IMF.
It is anticipated that the US dollar rate would fluctuate for some time, and the value of the Pakistani rupee would stabilise after proper implementation of the economic policies.
Moreover, gold prices jumped Rs1,000 or 1.23% to a new all-time high at Rs82,600 per tola (11.66 grams) following depreciation of the rupee on Monday.
