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
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
The larger story is the loss of confidence by business/investment community in Pakistan. It is worrying to see a big dip in confidence and deteriorating economic fundamentals recently with the flight of capital by Pakistani investors to real estate investments in the Gulf countries.
State Bank has raised interest rates from 10% to 12.5%, the rupee is in free fall, the dollar reserves are disappearing and both S&P and Moody’s have cut Pakistan’s credit ratings. All this has been happening while Ishaq Dar has been MIA as far as economic leadership is concerned. Let’s hope Zardari realizes this rapid worsening of the economy and puts in place a strong economic team to manage it.
I am an optimist by nature but it does scare me when I see “Har shaakh pe ullu betha hai….”