PKR: Torn

April 07, 2023 (MLN): After making an attempt to claw back losses in yesterday’s session, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) gave up today as it depreciated by 23 paisa against the US dollar.

The currency settled the day's trade at PKR 284.65 per USD compared to the previous close of PKR 284.42 per USD.

Throughout today’s session, the local unit traded in a band of 1.95 rupees, showing an intraday high bid of 285.10 and low offer of 283.40 while in the open market, PKR was traded at 290/292 per USD.

During the week, the currency lost 86 paisa against the greenback, as the previous week was concluded at PKR 283.79 per USD.

PKR remained highly volatile throughout the week mainly due to a bitter-sweet combination of fear, uncertainty, and hope.

In the earlier three sessions of the week, the increasing demand for dollars and plummeting reserves have badly put pressure on the local unit.

 Meanwhile, the continuous delay in the IMF tranche made the market participants skeptical pertaining to the possibility of funding which caused importers to panic and purchase dollars at higher prices.

Adding more pressure, the political noise created further doubts about whether the fund wanted to give any helping hand to the ruling government.

Despite the miserable situation wherein IMF clearly put forth one after another prerequisite, the SBP Governor Jameel Ahmad was optimistic for the fund revival very soon.

During an analyst briefing on the latest monetary policy statement on Tuesday, he said that the fund loan program will help the reserves to be increased above $10 billion by the end of FY23.

However, on Thursday, after enduring a rough ride during the previous three sessions, the news of IMF’s confirmation of Saudi assistance to Pakistan proved to be a fresh breeze for PKR.

IMF confirmed that Saudi Arabia has provided confirmation of $2 billion in extra deposits to Pakistan, raising expectations of a prompt signing of the deal.

Since January, the government has been in talks with the IMF to secure the release of $1.1 billion from a $6.5bn bailout package agreed in 2019.

Nonetheless, the agreement has been postponed due to commitments from friendly countries to provide further financial assistance.

But the optimism vanished in Friday’s session as the Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Ishaq Dar canceled his US trip to attend WB-IMF spring meetings.

He initially planned to meet with the management of the International Monetary Fund during spring meetings to discuss and address obstacles hindering the progress of a staff-level agreement that would facilitate the resumption of a stalled bailout package.

Alternatively, the currency gained 58 paisa against the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 354.16 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 354.74 per GBP.

On the other hand, PKR's value weakened by 46 paisa against EUR which closed at PKR 310.78 at the interbank today.

In FYTD, PKR lost 79.80 rupees or 28.04%, while it plummeted by 58.22 rupees or 20.45% against the USD in CYTD. On the other hand, within the last seven sessions, the local unit moved down by 0.30%, as per data compiled by Mettis Global.

On another note, within the money market, The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) conducted an Open Market Operation (OMO), and Shariah-compliant Mudarabah OMO today, in which it cumulatively injected a total of Rs1.44 trillion into the market, from which Rs1.39tr injected into the market under reverse repo.

Moreover, SBP also conducted Shariah-compliant Mudarabah OMO today, in which it injected Rs53bn into the market.

The overnight repo rate towards the close of the session was 21.25%/21.5%, whereas the 1-week rate was 21.25%/21.35%.

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