PKR falls by 21 paisa against USD

March 02, 2022 (MLN): After taking a breather for a day, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) once again started its downward slide against the greenback as the currency closed the trade at PKR 177.62, depreciating by 21 paisa in today's interbank session.

 On Tuesday, the local unit had settled around PKR 177.41 per USD.

The rupee traded within a very narrow range of 20 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid of 177.65 and an intraday low offer of 177.60.

Given the rising commodity prices, the soaring import bill has badly hit the current account balance of Pakistan which created a spell of depreciation around PKR.

Despite a hike in commodity prices, Prime Minister Imran Khan unveiled a major relief package, including an Rs10 per litre reduction in petroleum prices, Rs5 per unit cut in electricity tariff and some other measures to protect the masses from the impact of global inflationary trends.

As the geopolitical situation worsens, higher oil risks widen of trade deficit. Surging commodity price is already stoking inflation that’s bad for PKR too, Asad Rizvi, the Former Treasury Head at Chase Manhattan noted.

Meanwhile, the local unit has lost Rs20 against the USD from July’21 to date, while it depreciated by 1.1 paisa in CY22 with the month-to-date (MTD) position showing a drop of 0.11%, as per data compiled by Mettis Global.

Within the open market, PKR was traded at 177.60/178.50 per USD.

Alternatively, the currency gained 2.1 rupees against the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 235.97 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 238.12 per GBP.

Similarly, PKR's value strengthened by 1.8 rupees against EUR which closed at PKR 196.91 at the interbank today.

On another note, within the money market, the overnight repo rate towards the close of the session was 9.25/9.50 percent, whereas the 1-week rate was 9.85/9.95 percent.

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