KARACHI: Last week, during five days of trading, PKR was in a downward trend with net weekly fall of more than four rupees against the Euro in open market stopping just shy of Rs. 200 and net weekly falls of around 1.50 rupees against USD in both interbank and open market. Experts pointed out rising current account deficit as main factor behind this recent fall. Increases in both imports and import prices were pushing up demand for USD and other majors thus driving PKR down.
It was only on the last day of the week that PKR somewhat halted its slide and remained largely unchanged. This was probably due to market reacting to report of country's foreign exchange reserves hitting all time high of 27 billion dollars. In global markets, USD remained near 3 week lows throughout last week against other majors and went down further on Friday after a much softer than expected US payrolls report thus reducing chances of Fed rolling back its massive monetary stimulus.
INTER-BANK MARKET RATES: In the interbank market, Pakistan Rupee overall lost 1.50 rupees for both buying and selling against USD over the week closing at 167 and 167.10 respectively.
OPEN MARKET RATES: In the open market, PKR overall lost 1.60 rupees for both buying and selling over the week closing at 167.60 and 167.90 respectively.
Against Euro, PKR overall lost 4 rupees for buying and 4.30 rupees for selling closing at 197.50 and 199 respectively.
Against UAE Dirham, PKR recorded net loss of 50 paisas for both buying and selling closing at 45.60 and 45.80 respectively.
Against Saudi Riyal, PKR overall lost 35 paisas for both buying and selling closing at 44.35 and 44.55 respectively.
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Weekly Interbank market rates for dollar
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Bid Close Rs. 167.00
Offer Close Rs. 167.10
Bid Open Rs. 165.50
Offer Open Rs. 165.60
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Weekly Open market rates for dollar
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Bid Close Rs. 167.60
Offer Close Rs. 167.90
Bid Open Rs. 166.00
Offer Open Rs. 166.30
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Copyright Business Recorder, 2021