KARACHI: Chairman of National Business Group and President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, Mian Zahid Hussain has said that the rupee is strengthening against the dollar which is reducing loans and inflation while remittances are increasing which are consolidating forex reserves which is encouraging. He said policies of the central bank are paying dividends.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that on August 6 the dollar was traded at Rs168.44 in the local market but now it is available at Rs158.49 as the country has seen a current account surplus after five years. He said that loans from the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank to tackle pandemic has also supported rupee while fall in the value of dollar on a global scale was also a reason.

He noted that dollar can regain lose value after US elections while rupee can come under pressure if Pakistan decided to repay two billion dollars of Saudi loan. Textile sector has come out of troubled waters and their all production has been booked until April 2021 which is very encouraging, he said.

He noted that strengthened rupee has created some problems for exporters but the overall impact is very positive as the government will have billions on its disposal to be used for the welfare of masses. He said that reforms initiated by the central bank have boosted the confidence of expats resulting in over two billion dollar of remittances during the first five months of the current fiscal. An increase of 26.5 percent has been recorded in the remittances during the first four months which was 9.4 billion dollars as compared to 7.4 billion dollars during the last year.

Pakistan received 2.76 billion dollars during July while 2.3 billion dollars on October in which remittances from KSA, US and UK played a major role, he informed.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020