PKR in freefall, losing 31 paisa against greenback

January 17, 2023 (MLN): Maintaining its losing streak, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) has further lost its ground by 31 paisa against the greenback in today's interbank session as the currency settled the trade at PKR 228.66 per USD compared to yesterday's closing of PKR 228.34 per USD.

Within today’s session, the local unit traded in a band of 10 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid and low offer of 228.50 while in the open market, PKR was traded at 236.3/238.66 per USD.

Rising political heat, the absence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, and the government’s indecisiveness to consider effective measures to pull the economy out of the mess have compelled local unit to lose its value.

The analyst fraternity is of the view that the authorities should not intervene to hold PKR/dollar parity which is one of the major conditions of the IMF for resuming talks for the release of a $1.12 billion tranche.

Let go of the dollar peg which will help remittances and exports perform better, Fahad Rauf, Head of Research at Ismail Iqbal Securities said.

"Bangladesh also witnessed a sharp fall in remittances, when the gap between the open market and the official rate rose to 15 Taka per dollar. They increased the exchange rate for remittances, and the impact has been positive," he added.

In FYTD, PKR lost 23.81 rupees or 10.41%, while it plummeted by 0.34% against the USD in the last seven sessions, as per data compiled by Mettis Global.

Meanwhile, the currency lost 9 paisa to the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 279.28 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 279.2 per GBP.

Similarly, PKR's value weakened by 24 paisa against EUR which closed at PKR 247.51 at the interbank today.

On another note, within the money market, the overnight repo rate towards the close of the session was 15.1%/15.2%, whereas the 1-week rate was 15.13%/15.23%.

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