According to money central at msn, Pakistani Rupee was traded at US $68.25 today. Just around January of 2008, Rupee was quite steady at around 61 rupees to a dollar but in the past 4 months, the depreciation has been alomst 10%. That too at a time, when US dollar is also weakening as compared to other major curencies of the world. Following graph shows Rupee’s one year comparison versus the US dollar.
On May 23, 2008, ONE Unit of other currencies was equal to following number of rupees:
1 Australian Dollar = 65.64 Pakistani Rupees
1 Bangladesh Takka = 0.99 Pakistani Rupees
1 Canadian Dollar = 69.09 Pakistani Rupees
1 Chinese Yuan = 9.84 Pakistani Rupees
1 Euro = 107.73 Pakistani Rupees
1 Indian Rupee = 1.6 Pakistani Rupees
1 Iraqi Dinar = 0.06 Pakistani Rupee
1 Kuwaiti Dinar = 257.58 Pakistani Rupees
1 Saudi Rial = 18.23 Pakistani Rupees
1 Thai Baht = 2.12 Pakistani Rupees
1 UAE Dirhan = 18.61 Pakistani Rupees
1 Zimbabwe Dollar = 0.002 Pakistani Rupees
Following graph is the 5-year view of Pakistani rupee versus the US dollar. One can easily note the alarmingly sharp decline in the value of Rupee in the last few months.
Following graph shows Rupee’s sharp decline as of August 7, 2008
References:
1. Money central, msn
2. Yahoo Finance
being an economist at (reserve bank of australia ,senior forex expert magor) and looking at present pakistani eceonomy performance and economic fundamental intrest rates(at sbp website).i personally sent many letters to sbp in the starts of year 2007 telling them “please change ur reserves to euros”.i never got reply until one that said “we know well”.then euro was 1.25 or less per dollar now it reached 1.60 .they could have shielded their money from high oil price formula that what i wanted them to do.bcz euro rises with oil and falls with oil but our sbp is stupid enough to keep us dollar when their eceonomy is melting and all datas are crashing like crazy to please america i guess ! .i m personally mad at sbp and i would say stupid idiots are running sbp.,they don’t have a brain to use.some eceonomist call usa economy the “the falling dagger” i will quote pkr at rs 90 / dollar.why? inflation is 30 yrs high.what does that says… 90/dollar is like the minimum .i won;t be wrong if i say it will reach 100 / dollar, if the inflation trend continues and pakistan stock market does not get back on feets.sbp has just 2 months of money to pay imports that means country has ran out of $ money.i wonder and wonder how is pakistan eceonomy running.seriously it makes me amazed.quoting us dollar at 90 in next 2 months, if pakistan reserves does not get better.i would personally blame all this on sbp .y? cause even iran,india,china,indonesia,malaysia changed resrves into euros y not them.if u want to shield from oil affects , euro is the answer.even now if they buy euros i gurantee u our country would do better.iran made $700 million profits from euro uptrend that means they made a profit of $100 million on $1 billion that means if pakistan bought $20 billion worth of euros say euro 15 billion , they got 3 billion free now 10+3= 13 billion $ that means more 3 $ billion more.and plus they would get free from oil crisis.stupid people running sbp .that all i can say.i sent those idiots e-mails from my RBA wesbite account and they knew well i was a well known economist.i m really frausated at sbp ignorance.
A graph is added to the post showing Rupee’s sharp decline in the last few months. Graph is current as of August 7, 2008
The unabated slide of Pakistani rupee continues. today’s dawn reports 1 US dollar = 73.3 Rupee.
Unfortunate as it may be, there appaears to be no quick fix for the burgeoning value of the pakistani rupee.
The problem appears to arise from an overwhelming array of investment in a military dictatorship which is only too happy to fill the pockets of its senior military personnel.
A high production cost base of the exported goods which is having a damning effect on the pakistani economy. Not to forget the worsening effect of local investors shifting their monies to areas away from local stocks which is killing the stock market. if you can clearly call it one.
It hurts even more to say that if it was not for our ex-pat communities bailing out the country at every devaluation of the rupee that it would be in an even worse position it is at present.
I can only see further devaluation of the rupee to 85-99 USD if not higher in the short to medium term.
Back to the topic at hand.. Pak Rupee and US Dollar :)
Folks get ready for a 78 to 80 Rs a dollar in coming 9 months.
I will keep it simple.. Here is why..
By year end or 1st Quarter 2009, the price of Oil is expected to drop below $115 a Barrel. Yes there is demand for oil by india and china, but at the moment there is a huge bubble in the oil market.
Lower oil price means stronger dollar. Given that Pakistan’s economy is not likely to improve by early 2009, we will see another downward slide for Pak Rupee.
Folks get ready for a 78 to 80 Rs a dollar in coming 9 months.
Its expected to drop by another 8 to 10% which means early 2009 we are looking at a conversion rate of around 80 Rs a Dollar.
Pakistan will beat India in economics one day. So what if Pakistan has $11 billion in FOREX reserves and India has $310 billion in FOREX reserves.
Karan–no offense, but I have seen this (dead bodies) personally. Numbers and statistics serve their purpose, but do not cloak the reality.
But this was not my point. My point was that Pakistan could look at countries whose economies were growing rapidly and whose currencies are doing well against the dollar (like, for example, India’s) to see what factors contributed to that success. So from that angle we are in agreement.
India’s educated middle classes and individual entrupeneurship are largely responsible for the country’s growth and success rather than government level policies, as for example happens in China. Am I wrong in stating this? You may have a different take on it.
What Pakistan could learn from India, then, is that an educated workforce and a business friendly environment (rather than one crippled by corruption) would probably help.
That’s all and I don’t believe that any of that is insulting to India. Sorry if you felt it to be so. As for the poor on the street–on some level general growth may help them. But you may ask yourself why India has people living like this and China does not. The answer may simply be that India needs some strong, ambitious top level social policies like China has implemented–and Pakistan could use the same.
We can learn something from every success and every problem if we look.
“Tina -
India is a growing country thanks to its individual multi-billionaires, but there can still be found dead bodies lying on the streets.”
lols :) …..What century are you living in ??? Dead bodies on streets ???? Agreed, that a lot of people in the country aren’t very rich yet, but still, I think you are sadly mistaken …. we are doing pretty well when it comes to improving the overall lifestyle of our people …. Growth has boosted the number of jobs in the service sector, and manufacturing has grown pretty well in recent years as well …. overall growth of our economy has been between 8 - 9 % in the last three years, next to only China among the large economies ….. normal monsoons in the last 13 years mean that India hasn’t required massive imports to feed itself ….. food inflation in India has been around 5-7% which is one of the lowest among major emerging economies …. and unlike the Pak rupee, our currency appreciated 10% against the dollar …..
and as for our security problems, we have our not so successful neighbours and their poor, uneducated, frustrated, indoctrinated youth to thank for and not our “rich - poor divide” !!!!!
I know that my comments are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but then so are yours …… while commenting on the Indian economy and Indian economic policies, there is no need to try and point out irrelevant “facts” about India, just to feel better about yourselves