PKR weakens by 18 paisa in a week

August 20, 2021 (MLN): After gaining 11 paisa against greenback in the previous session, Pakistani rupee (PKR) continued its seesaw journey, losing 10 paisa on Friday's interbank session to close the trade at PKR 164.18.

On Tuesday, the home unit had closed at PKR 164.08 per USD.

The current situation of Afghanistan has a significant impact on the economy of overall the region. Particularly, from the perspective of Pakistan, the situation of quite sensitive

As per the latest developments, USA has frozen all the Afghan Central Bank’s assets. Meanwhile, IMF has also announced to block SDR allocation worth $460million.

Hence, Afghan’s can only buy goods from KPK by paying dollars in cash. Here, SBP’s strong vigilance is required to monitor the activity, said Asad Rizvi, the former treasury head at Chase Manhattan.

The rupee endured a relatively dull trading session with very little intraday movement, trading in a range of 11 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid of 164.20 and an intraday Low offer of 164.14.

During the week, the currency has lost 18 paisa against the greenback, as the previous week was concluded at PKR 164 per USD.

Within the Open Market, PKR was traded at 163.80/164.50 per USD.

According to the data compiled by Mettis Global, the home unit has depreciated by 4.04% and 2.65% in FY22 and CY21, respectively with the month-to-date (MTD) position showing a drop of 1.07%.

Alternatively, the currency gained 2.9 rupees against the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 223.61 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 226.53 per GBP.

Similarly, PKR's value strengthened by 1.5 rupees against EUR which closed at PKR 191.68 at the interbank today.

On another note, within the money market, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) conducted an Open Market Operation in which it injected Rs.2.2 trillion for 7 days at 7.09 percent.

The overnight repo rate towards close of the session was 7.15/7.30 percent, whereas the 1 week rate was 7.10/7.15 percent.

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