KARACHI: Pakistani rupee Monday recorded marginal losses against the US dollar, depreciating 0.02% in the interbank market.
As per the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the rupee closed at 221.69 after a depreciation of Rs0.5.
Interbank closing #ExchangeRate for todayhttps://t.co/QHXuOvBJt0 pic.twitter.com/QqrB6G5Uai
— SBP (@StateBank_Pak) November 14, 2022
The rupee gained 0.12% against the US dollar to conclude the previous week at 221.64 as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the government implemented a number of administrative measures to control exchange rate volatility.
The SBP implemented measures to reduce market volatility over the week, lowering the cash-carrying limits for passengers and lowering the annual dollar limitation for debit and credit card transactions.
However, a massive fall in foreign exchange reserves, which the SBP attributed to external debt servicing, meant Pakistan’s overall position stood at around 1.5 months of import cover. Additionally, a month-on-month decrease in workers’ remittances, a key source of dollar inflow for Pakistan, is also likely to put pressure on the current account.
Remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis declined nearly 16% in October 2022 on a year-on-year basis to $2.215 billion as informal and illegal channels of transferring money took their toll.
According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday, the remittances were 15.7% lower than the $2.62 billion sent home from abroad in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
However, remittances declined by 9% on a year-on-year basis to $9.9 billion in four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year 2022-23.
