After being hammered for nearly two weeks, the US dollar has started to show some resistance to the onslaught of the Pakistani rupee as the greenback lost only 38 paisas in value at the start of the interbank trading on Thursday. The soaring rupee’s everyday margin started to reverse a little from over rupee one to rupee two has now come down to just paisas. Though the US dollar had gained nine paisas on Wednesday but lost only 38 paisas on Thursday. The greenback at the moment was being traded at Rs217.50 amid reports Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has reached Washington for talks with IMF and World Bank on some debt relief.

On Wednesday, the US dollar increased by nine paisas to close the day at Rs217.88. The rupee is showing resilience since Finance Minister Ishaq Dar took the charge of Finance Ministry and warned speculators of strict action for artificially appreciating the rate of dollar. He said that the actual rate of US currency should have been below Rs200.  The State Bank of Pakistan has started a crackdown on traders and commercial banks who were involved in the speculative trading which has enabled the local unit to resuscitate.  Besides this, the SBP has been providing liquidity to the market which is likely to help banks in releasing payments to clear import backlog.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP