The rupee closed the day at Rs177.11 against the US dollar.
cross the Rs177 barrier against the greenback after a hiatus of nearly two months.
Since July 1, 2021, the Pakistani rupee has depreciated by 12.42 percent.
Karachi: On Friday, the rupee continued to lose ground against other currencies as it once again broke through the Rs177-to-the-US dollar barrier in the inter-bank market. Russia and Ukraine have been at odds for a while now.
According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), with a fresh decline of 0.41 percent , the local currency closed the day at Rs177.11 against the US dollar in the inter-bank market, after a hiatus of nearly two months.
Currency dealers had expected the rupee to remain range-bound against the dollar this week amid healthy inflows and a lack of fresh triggers. However, the Ukraine crisis defied all their expectations.
After posting a fresh decline of 0.41 percent , the Pakistani rupee has depreciated by 12.42 percent (or Rs 19.57) since the start of the current fiscal year on July 1, 2021, data released by the central bank revealed.
For the previous nine months, the rupee had been in a downward trend. It has lost 13.31 percent (or Rs24.84) to date, compared to the record high of Rs152.27 recorded in May 2021.
When Samiullah Tariq spoke to Geo.tv, he said that the rupee has been hurt by the geopolitical situation in Europe and how that affects the financial and commodity markets.
“Globally, people are moving towards safe-haven assets,” he said, adding that this is the reason why the Pakistani rupee has also been impacted.
Tariq was of the view that the direction of the local currency would be driven by the geopolitical situation and commodity prices.
Meanwhile, the foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank dropped 1.69 percent on a weekly basis, according to data released by the SBP on Thursday.
On February 18, the foreign currency reserves held by the SBP were reported at $16,806.5 million, down $289 million compared with $17,095.8 million on February 11.
For the country as a whole, it had $23,226 million in liquid foreign currency reserves that were not held by the SBP.Banks maintained $6,419.5 million in net reserves.