The Indian rupee ended at an eight session high on Wednesday and approached a multiyear closing peak, helped by trade remittances which more than met month-end importer demand.
The unit closed at 45.2400/2450 per dollar, up from Tuesday's 45.2750/2850, extending gains for 2004 to 0.8 percent.
It is just about a paisa off the three-and-half year closing high of 45.2325/2375 per dollar seen on February 13. "Flows were very good as there was quite a bit of export remittances in the pipeline," said a trader at a state-run bank.
Remittances had piled up because state-run banks did not trade on Tuesday as their employees participated in a nation-wide strike called by workers of state-run firms.
The Indian central bank has intervened to slow the rupee's rise, helping exports and containing currency speculation.
It limited the rupee's rise to 5.2 percent in 2003, in the face of strong forex inflows, and it has continued its relentless intervention this year as well.
Dollar forwards were slightly stronger as banks squared off buy-sell swaps, with the rollover of exporters' forward contracts less than expected.
The annualised premium on the six-month dollar climbed 10 basis points to 0.42 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed.