PKR hits 217/USD, loses 1.8 rupees in intraday trade

July 19, 2022 (MLN): Continuing its downward journey on the back of rising political heat, and depressing macros, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) lost around two rupees against the US dollar in the interbank market on Tuesday during intraday trade against the previous close of 215.75 per USD.

The local unit was quoted in the interbank market at 217/218 per USD [10:44 PST] with trades being reported at 217 per USD.  

Yesterday, the local unit witnessed a massive slash of over four rupees which was the huge single-day decline after 28 months as the last time PKR saw a fall of 1.97% was on March 20, 2022. 

Adding more fuel to the fire, Fitch Ratings on Tuesday revised Pakistan's Outlook to Negative from Stable while affirming its Long-Term Foreign-Currency (LTFC) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at 'B-'. 

The revision of the outlook to Negative reflects a significant deterioration in Pakistan's external liquidity position and financing conditions since early 2022.

Experts are of the view that the interbank market needs economic and political uncertainty to stabilize the PKR dollar parity. 

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