Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has blamed the political turmoil as the cause of the rupee’s depreciation against the US dollar.
In an interview to Reuters, Miftah Ismail said that the pressure on rupee would decrease in the next few days as the political turmoil subsides.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had in a series of tweets on Tuesday said that the market-determined exchange rate system had caused the recent movement of rupee.
The report of Reuters has also said that Pakistan is struggling with fast depleting foreign reserves, declining currency and widening fiscal and current account deficits. It also said that the reserves have fallen to as low as $9.8 billion that would be hardly sufficient to pay for 45 days of imports.
Pakistan’s sovereign dollar bond suffered sharp loss after Fitch moved the country’s rating to B-, while KSE-100 index fell 2.36 percent on Tuesday.
The finance minister told that the downfall of rupee was not because of economic fundamentals, attributing it primarily to political turmoil.
Miftah Ismail said that the imports have been curbed and the current account deficit was controlled in first 18 days of June.
Despite the staff level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), rupee fell by two percent on Monday and three percent on Tuesday reaching an all-time-high value of Rs222 on Tuesday.
