During the first hours of trade on Tuesday, the Pakistani rupee appreciated 0.4% against the US dollar in the interbank market.
During intraday trade, the rupee was quoted at 274.20 at roughly 10:30 a.m., up Rs. 1.10.
Following a slight improvement against the US dollar on Monday, when it closed at 275.30 against the US dollar, the rupee has since increased by Rs1.28, or 0.46%.
A significant development is that policy-level conversations will begin on Tuesday after the technical-level discussions between Pakistan and the IMF delegation were supposed to have ended on Monday.
The Fund is quite concerned about the untargeted subsidies for the power sector because it wants to make them targeted, according to sources who spoke on the record. The fact that the main deficit was far larger than anticipated by the government was another cause for concern.
On a global scale, the dollar slowed down from its rise at the beginning of the week on Tuesday, but it continued to trade close to a one-month high as traders increased their projections of the US Federal Reserve interest rate levels required to contain inflation.
The US dollar index reached a close to a one-month high of 103.76 on Monday as a result of the strengthening US dollar; it was last 0.15% lower at 103.45. Tuesday saw a rise in gold prices as the dollar weakened a little. Traders were looking forward to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech later in the day for clues about potential rate increases following last week’s positive economic statistics.
An important indicator of currency parity, oil prices increased for a second straight session on Tuesday, supported by expectations for improving Chinese demand and worries about supply constraints following the closure of a significant export terminal due to an earthquake in Turkey.
