April 20, 2022 (MLN): On the back of economic woes, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) continued on its downward journey in the interbank market as the currency closed the trade at PKR 185.92 against the US dollar, witnessing a sharp decline of 1.5 rupees, compared to the yesterday's closing of PKR 184.44 per USD.
The rupee endured a volatile trading session with quotes being recorded in a range of 65 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid of 186.10 and an intraday low offer of 185.55.
According to the money market experts, the local unit is under severe pressure due to a set of economic challenges including depleting foreign exchange reserves, foreign direct disinvestment, widening fiscal deficit and raging commodity prices.
In addition, Pakistan paid $2.5 billion to China in the last week of March but the said amount has not yet been reversed in terms of rollover.
Higher import payment owing to the 96% increase in petroleum products and crude oil imports has put pressure on the domestic unit.
Meanwhile, the import of petroleum products in 9MFY22 amounted to $14.8 billion.
From July’21 to date, the local unit has lost Rs28.38 against the USD. Similarly, the rupee fell by Rs9.41 in CYTD, with the month-to-date (MTD) position showing a drop of 1.32%, as per data compiled by Mettis Global.
During the last 52 weeks, PKR lost 18.10% against the greenback, reached its lowest at 184.44 today and touched its high of 152.27 on May 7, 2021.
Furthermore, the local unit has weakened by 8.78% since its high on May 5, 2021, against EUR. While, it has dropped by 12.37% against GBP since its high on May 7, 2021.
In addition, the performance of PKR remained bleak against major currencies during the last seven sessions as it weakened by 2.29%, 2.21%, 2.21%, 2.10%, 1.55%, 0.41%, and 0.28% against GBP, SAR, AED, EUR, CNY, CHF, and JPY, respectively.
Within the open market, PKR was traded at 186/187.50 per USD.
Meanwhile, the currency lost 2.1 rupees to the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 241.97 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 239.92 per GBP.
Similarly, PKR's value weakened by 2.2 rupees against EUR which closed at PKR 201.11 at the interbank today.
On another note, within the money market, the overnight repo rate towards the close of the session was 11.40/11.60 percent, whereas the 1-week rate was 12.15/12.25 percent.
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