An increase of 3.86 percent in the country's remittances helped the rupee to gain strength in the interbank market, picking up seven paisa versus the dollar for buying at Rs 59.41 and rose by five paisa for selling at Rs 59.45, respectively. According to the money experts, the inflows of remittances into the country improved from Saudi Arabia, US, United Arab Emirates and especially from the GCC states during December 2004.
They said that this was an occasion for appreciation of the rupee because when rising remittance pushed the local currency up, the exporters came back to sell dollars on apprehension of further erosion in the greenback's value.
In the international arena a bunch of factors helped the dollar to rebound from five-year lows against the yen in Asian trade, dealers said.
Commenting on the greenback's recovery, they said rising expectations that the US central bank may hike interest rates sharply to counter inflation and speculations that the US President likely to discuss more steps against the ballooning US current account and budget deficits.
In the meantime, the president of the European Central Banb (ECB) Trichet called for more flexibility in the Asian currencies and also hinted that the single European currency alone can't bear the full burden of the dollar's weakness versus the world currencies.
Incidentally, the euro's slide in the overseas markets, provided the ground to the local currency to come out of the weakness and ascended with improvement of 55 paisa for buying and selling at Rs 77.20 and Rs 77.50, dealers said.

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Kerb Buying             Rs 59.55
Kerb Selling            Rs 59.65
================================

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Buying                Rs 59.41
Selling               Rs 59.45
==============================
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Repo Rates (Yield p a)
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Tenor      Low Bid   High Bid   Low Offer   High Offer    Average
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Overnight   7.40       7.45       7.40        7.45           7.43
1-Week      6.50       7.00       7.00        7.25           6.94
2-Week      4.75       5.00       5.25        5.50           5.13
1-Month     4.25       4.50       4.75        4.90           4.60
2-Months    4.00       4.25       4.25        4.50           4.25
3-Months    4.60       5.10       5.00        5.50           5.05
4-Months    4.75       5.20       5.00        5.50           5.11
5-Months    4.80       5.20       5.25        5.60           5.21
6-Months    4.90       5.10       5.50        5.70           5.30
9-Months    5.00       5.25       5.70        5.90           5.46
1-Year      5.50       5.75       6.00        6.25           5.88
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Call Rates (Yield p a)
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Tenor      Low Bid   High Bid   Low Offer   High Offer    Average
=================================================================
Overnight   7.40       7.50       7.40        7.50           7.45
1-Week      7.25       7.50       7.50        7.75           7.50
2-Week      5.00       5.25       5.50        5.75           5.38
1-Month     5.00       5.50       5.75        6.00           5.56
2-Month     5.20       5.40       5.75        5.90           5.56
3-Month     5.50       5.75       6.25        6.50           6.00
4-Month     5.60       5.80       6.00        6.30           5.93
5-Month     5.75       6.00       6.25        6.50           6.13
6-Month     6.00       6.50       6.75        7.00           6.56
9-Month     5.80       6.10       6.50        6.75           6.29
1-Year      6.25       6.50       6.75        7.00           6.63
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