Rupee best performing currency

KARACHI:
Pakistan’s volatile rupee became the “world’s best performing currency” in the week ended on Friday, as it made the largest gain of 3.9% over five working days to Rs219.92 to a dollar on expectation of significant foreign currency inflows. “The rupee remained the best performing currency on a weekon-week basis,” announced Arif Habib Limited Head of Research Tahir Abbas in a brief review of currency movements.
Friday was the 11th consecutive working day for the rupee when it maintained the winning streak since the current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced his return to Pakistan by ending a five-year self-exile last month. Apparently, after taking over, Dar resumed his old policy of protecting the rupee against the onslaught of the US dollar. He found the rupee undervalued at July’s all-time low of nearly 240 to a dollar and suspected the manipulation of the rupee value by commercial banks to serve vested interests. A probe in this regard is underway.
In a quick move, Pakistani officials, while strongly reacting to the credit rating downgrade by Moody’s to Caa1, told the rating agency that during recent meetings with multilateral creditors, the government had received additional funding commitment of over $2.5 billion from the Asian Development Bank. Similarly, the World Bank has pledged additional funding of around $1.3 billion for infrastructure development and other projects in the current financial year.
These are in addition to the ministry’s financing plan at the start of the financial year, they said. Besides, on the appeal of the UN secretary general, funds to the tune of $816 million were pledged by countries at a conference in Geneva on October 4, 2022. “We expect further funds to pour in from multilaterals and friendly countries in the upcoming donor conference planned to be held in Pakistan in November.-PNP