KARACHI: The US dollar jumped to Pakistani Rupee (PKR) 218.98 at closing of interbank foreign exchange market on Friday.
The exchange rate recorded a decline of 38 paisas in rupee value to end at Rs218.98 from previous day’s closing of Rs218.60 in the interbank foreign exchange market.
READ MORE: Dollar closes down to PKR 218.60 on September 01, 2022
Currency experts said that the mounting dollar demand for import payment pressured the exchange rate during the day.
It is worth mentioning that the rupee made recovery during this week owing to inflows of $1.16 billion from International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF executive board on August 29 approved seventh and eighth review for Pakistan and allowed transfer of $1.1 billion as tranche, which was received by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on August 31, 2022.
READ MORE: Dollar slips to PKR 218.75 at interbank closing on August 31, 2022
The currency experts said that although the IMF inflows would help the further inflows under bilateral and multilateral sources. However, the devastation of floods has changed the economic environment scenario.
The torrential rains and flash floods have inflicted a loss of $10 billion to Pakistan economy.
The devastation will prompt the country to make imports in coming days, especially for agriculture produces.
The rupee also fell due to continuous depletion in foreign exchange reserves of the country.
READ MORE: Dollar falls to PKR 220.12 at interbank closing on August 30, 2022
The foreign exchange (FX) reserves of Pakistan have declined by $119 million to $13.40 billion by week ended August 26, 2022. The foreign exchange reserves of the country were at $13.522 billion by week ended August 19, 2022.
The country’s foreign exchange reserves hit all-time high of $27.228 billion on August 27, 2021. Since then the foreign exchange reserves have declined by $13.825 billion.
The official foreign exchange reserves of the State Bank witnessed a decline of $113 million to $7.697 billion by week ended August 26, 2022 as against $7.810 billion a week ago.
READ MORE: Dollar strengthens to PKR 221.92 amid political uncertainty
The foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank witnessed a record high at $20.146 billion by week ended August 27, 2021. Since then the official reserves of the SBP dropped by $12.449 billion.
The central bank however said it had received proceeds of $1.16 billion (equivalent of SDR 894 million) from IMF under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) on August 31, 2022 which would be included in SBP’s foreign exchange reserve position for the week ending on September 02, 2022.
