Rupee eases by 32 paisas against dollar on payment demand

Rupee eases by 32 paisas against dollar on payment demand

KARACHI: The Pak Rupee eased by 32 paisas against dollar on Wednesday owing to rising demand for import and corporate payments ahead of Eid holidays.

The rupee ended Rs166.78 to the dollar from previous day’s closing of Rs166.46 in interbank foreign exchange market.

Currency experts said that the dollar demand was increased due to scheduled holidays for Eid-ul-Adha.

The government has announced holidays from July 31, 2020 to August 02, 2020 on occasion of Eid-ul-Adha.

The currency experts however said that the inflows of export receipts and remittances besides the transfers of funds from foreign lending agencies would help the rupee value in coming days.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday received $505.5 million from the World Bank.

The workers’ remittances rose by a significant 50.7 percent during June 2020 to reach monthly record high $2.46 billion compared with $1.63 billion in June 2019.

Similarly, on a cumulative basis, workers’ remittances increased to a historic high level of $23.12 billion during FY20, witnessing a growth of 6.4 percent over $21.74 billion during FY19.

According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) the import bill of the country fell by 18.6 percent to $44.57 billion as compared with $54.76 billion in the preceding fiscal year.

This helped the country to curtail the trade deficit for the year. The trade deficit of the country shrank by 27 percent to $23.18 billion during fiscal year 2019/2020 as compared with the deficit of $31.8 billion in the preceding fiscal year.