Do you remember an old adage:
‘ye cheez to Takkay ki nahiN hai’ (This thing is not worth a Takka).
Well, today the tables have turned. What was once true of BD Takka is now true for a Pakistani Rupee. As of today 1 Bangladeshi Takka equals 1.14 Pakistani Rupees . The phenomenal slide of Pakistani Rupee, which started around January 2008 continues unabated. Pakistani rupee is now trading at very close to 80 Rupees to a US dollar. Yahoo Finance was quoting Pakistani rupee at Rs 78.375 to a US dollar on October 6, 2008.
We also had a post on this topic back in May 25, 2008 when Rupee had slid down to Rs 68 for a dollar but this time slide in Rupee’s value seems like the steepest in history of Pakistan. Rupee has lost almost one third of its value in the past 10 months.
The question that everyone is asking is whether current Government is capable of controlling this situation or is it beyond anybody’s control.
Pakistan’s finance Minister (since May 12, 2008) is Mr. Naveed Qamar and atleast I’ve not heard anything from him about what are Government’s plans to bolster Rupee’s value or to stop fast depleting foreign exchange reserves of Pakistan (now down to approx $8.1 bn).
What is happening to a common person among all this turmoil is depicted well in a sher by Anwar Masood.
“jo dil pe guzarti hai raqam karte raheN ge”
kal tum ko bata deN ge raqam kitni bani hai
Reference:
Dear All,
I am regularly reading this $Rs blog which has now grown into
a ”us versus them ” forum.
Will Mr Shaukat Aziz please stand up and be counted as the last Prime
Minister and respond. He is under no binding agreement.
However he is under obligation to the hapless people of Attock and Thar from where he was made to file his bye election papers.
He should say that ” banda e mazdoor ke auqat ” in Attock and Thar have not changed for the worse(they were exactly the same before he took over and left it exactly the same).
Let this blog be a blog and not a cut/paste shop.
A note: The in- camera session.
” jaan kek kar jo bulaya to bura maangaye,
aina unko dikhaya to bura maangaye.
And I would again say to be patient, after all, they are ”our” elected reps.
Not all of us should start mudslinging again, today.
Wait a bit, just a bit, a little bit, please —–
Sincerely
Naseer
Funny thing is it is Musharraf and Musharraf alone who with his NRO gave Zardari a clean slate and is responsible for withdrawing all the cases lodged against him with taxpayers money.
Who gave Musharraf the right to forgive Zardari and waive off all the money he has looted from the country. Was it Musharraf’s money that Zardari looted? How we simply seem to overlook this fact and put all the blame on Pakistani nation?
First things first. The immediate solution is to get around $10 billion for the this fiscal year as aid. We might get it since Shaukat Tarin is on board. But being a banker, I hope he does not screw up the future economy as Shaukat Aziz ended up doing with his policies.
The way I see it, there seems to be hardly any hardcore solution to our economic crisis.
Will cussing at Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz lead to the PKR increasing in value ? No. The only reason for engaging in it is that the current govt has offered no alternative. No monetary or fiscal policy and no economic vision. Not surprisingly considering clowns and crooks like Zardari are in charge.
Pakistanis should reap what they have sown.
Another legacy of Musharraf era is Shamshad Akhtar who does not have an idea what she is doing. The rumor mill has it that her days are also numbered because she is incapable of managing the situation
http://financepakistan.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/ec on666/