ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani currency suddenly weakened over one-rupee toRs142.7 to the US dollar in the open market on Friday as speculationmounted that Pakistan had agreed to let the rupee depreciate further undera stringent International Monetary Fund bailout programme.
“There is speculation the rupee will depreciate to 165-170 against the USdollar in the inter-bank market as per IMF’s conditions,” ExchangeCompanies Association of Pakistan Secretary General Zafar Paracha saidwhile talking to media.During the day, the rupee remained stable at 141.39 to the greenback in theinter-bank market, the State Bank of Pakistan reported.
Pakistan Forex Association President Malik Bostan said “market talksuggests Pakistan and the IMF have agreed to let the rupee fall to acertain level. However, there is no official word on the likelydevelopment.” Topline Research reported a couple of days ago that therewere chances that the rupee would weaken 13-17% to 160-165 to the greenbackby December 2019.
“Pilgrims who are about to perform Umrah or going for Haj later seem to bemajor buyers of the foreign currency these days,” Paracha said.
With the latest drop of Rs1.1 on Friday, the rupee weakened by a total of1.3 against the dollar in the open market in the past four days, accordingto forex.pk.
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Earlier, the central bank let the rupee depreciate a massive 34% sinceDecember 2017 to date in a bid to boost sluggish exports and drasticallycut imports to narrow down the current account deficit and improve balanceof payments situation.
Bostan added that the demand and supply of dollar remained stable, butthere was a jump in the demand for Saudi riyal.
