Rupee surges 20 paisas to 181.82 versus $

KARACHI: Pakistani rupee showed strength against the US dollar for the fourth session in a row and recovered to 181.82 on Tuesday.
The State Bank of Pakistan said in a statement that the rupee opened at 182.02 against the US dollar in the interbank market and closed at 181.82 after gaining 20 paisas (+0.11 percent). Within the open market, the rupee was traded at 180.5/181.5 per dollar against 181.5/182.5 a day earlier.
The rupee has recovered Rs6.36 (+3.38 percent) against the dollar during the last four sessions. Overall, the rupee shed Rs0.69 against the US dollar last week, while the local unit devalued by Rs24.39 during the ongoing fiscal year 2021-22 and Rs5.37 during the current year 2022.
The currency analysts said that with the formation of the new government, the current political crisis has come to an end and the rupee may recover further in the coming days. They said the rupee appreciated against the greenback after much clarity on the domestic political landscape.
Apart from clarity on the political front, the other helping factors could be the slow demand for dollars from importers as they may be waiting for some more correction. Moreover, the flow of remittances increases during Ramzan and this is also helping the rupee to appreciate against foreign currencies.
The central bank’s bold move to raise the policy rate by 250bps last week provided support to rupee and it made a decent recovery against the US dollar. The SBP reported earlier that foreign exchange reserves of the country fell to $17.477 billion by the week ended April 1, 2022. The country’s foreign exchange reserves hit an all-time high of $27.228 billion on August 27, 2021 and have declined $9.78 billion since then, owing to demand for the dollars for import payments and external repayment of government debt. – TLTP