The Pakistani rupee resumed its path to slow recovery after adding 26 paisas to its value in the interbank trading on Monday, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
According to forex dealers, the US dollar depreciated by 26 paisas during the trading activity in the interbank and closed the day at Rs221.66.
On Friday, the last trading day of previous week, the dollar was closed at Rs221.95 making local unit to depreciate by 0.23%.
Despite political uncertainty in the country, the rupee showed some guts on the back of incoming financial assistance to the tune of $8.8 billion from China as has been revealed by Dar during his informal talk with journalists on Friday.
Dar said during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent visit to Beijing, the Chinese leadership agreed to roll over $4bn in sovereign loans, refinance $3.3bn commercial bank loans and increase currency swap by about $1.45bn — from 30bn yuan to 40bn yuan. So the total financial assistance worked out at $8.75bn.
He went on to say that there was likelihood of additional $4.2 billion financial assistance from Saudi Arabia which includes $3 billion additional package and supply of Saudi oil on deferred payment.
Besides this, while agreeing to the request of Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP), the State Bank allowed the exchange firms to use up to 20% of remittances to cater to the traders’ demand for dollars in the open market.
On Thursday, the ECAP also demanded of the government to put a ban on trade in cash dollars.
The government should immediately ban trade in cash dollars to prevent depreciation in Pakistani Rupee, the ECAP said in a statement claiming that that an amount of around $2 billion was transferred to Afghanistan which was pressurizing the foreign exchange reserves of Pakistan.
Reporter Ashraf Khan