Pakistan’s currency suffered a massive drop on Friday as the dollar rose to all-time high at Rs 144, a day after the government celebrated its 100-day achievements. Muhammad Sohail, an Economic Expert, said in the coming weeks rupee could slump to as low as Rs150.
With the devaluation of rupee, the external debt on Pakistan swelled by a staggering Rs 760 billion, according to Geo News.
Finance Minister Asad Umar blamed the current volatility on policies pursued by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, saying the devaluation was inevitable because of ‘flawed policies’ of the previous administration.
Zaffar Paracha, general secretary of the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP), said that the devaluation was expected before any agreement with the IMF. “It seems a continuation of the IMF’s condition for a bailout package,” he said.
“The market was disappointed to see that there was no clear-cut direction of the government regarding raising loans from IMF or taxation policies for the rest of its term,” said Hamad Iqbal, director of research at Elixir Securities.
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