KARACHI: As the recent local currency depreciation has inflicted a great loss to the national economy and cost of deals done by the businessmen with their foreign counterparts have jumped manifold, All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF) has urged the government to control surge of dollar against rupee.
APBF president Ibrahim Qureshi observed that the widening current account deficit, excessive government borrowing, absence of foreign flows, increasing oil imports and lack of foreign investment are the vital reasons for the sudden depreciation of Pak rupee.
APBF president said that the devaluation always pushed inflation on higher side and made the common life miserable in past and this seems to be going happen again.
The APBF president said that causes of depreciation of a currency are multiple which in combination push and pull the respective currency’s quotation in conjunction with other currency. If there is more demand for dollars in Pakistan than the supply, rupee would depreciate. So, the government should take steps to commence trade between Pakistan and China in local currencies with special emphasis on greater Chinese investment in Pakistan’s lagging value-addition economic activities for making meaningful improvement in bilateral trade balance, he added.
He feared that if notice of the situation was not taken immediately, the rupee would go further down within next few days, as demand of dollars may be created by importers requiring more dollars to pay for, foreigners withdrawing their investments and taking the dollars outside.
Post a Comment