Dollar falls against rupee as economy performs well

KARACHI

Dollar has further depreciated against rupee which according to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is that the country’s economy has performed well during the first eight months of the current fiscal year (2013-140).
Several prudent measures by the government, including ban on import of gold and investment flows, have helped strengthen the rupee.
According to State Bank of Pakistan‚ the country received foreign direct investment of $523 million in the first seven months of current fiscal year with 106.9 million dollars in the month of January alone.
In addition‚ the expected receipt of $550 million from the International Monetary fund along with the proposed launch of Eurobonds next month has also led to positivity in the foreign exchange market.
Earlier‚ the rupee gone up sharply against dollar which declined to 99.90 rupees in the inter-bank market on Tuesday (March 11).
The economy of the country has performed well during the first eight months of the current fiscal year (2013-140) as suggested by major economic indicators including growth rate, inflation, foreign remittances, foreign exchange reserves, external trade and industrial growth, Dar said on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference to share performance of economy from 1st July to 28th February (2013-14), the federal minister said visible changes have been witnessed in the form of increase in GDP growth and decrease in Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation.
He said that the performance has also been evaluated by independent institutions like International Monetary Fund which also termed it positive and have reversed their growth targets from 2.8 percent to 3.3 percent.
He said that as compared to average GDP growth of 3% during past three consecutive years, the GDP growth is projected to remain up to 4.5 percent this year.
He said that inflation based on CPI has also reduced to 8.6 percent which would be maintained at around 8.5 percent by the end of fiscal year.
He said that this was due to vision of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and integrity in policies that they are seeing these positive results.
However, we have to do more to realize the dream of new Pakistan by exploiting the countries resources including minerals, gas and oil reserves to boost economy.
The federal minister said that tax collection during the first eight months have increased by 17.7 percent as compared to the same period of last year. The tax collection during July-February (2013-14) was recorded at Rs.1348 billion compared to Rs.1145 billion in 2012-13, he said.
The minister said that the budget deficit during the first eight months of the current year has been reduced to 3.1 percent compared to the deficit of 4.4 percent last year.
The remittances have also increased from $9.23 billion last year to $10.24 billion this year, showing an increase of 11 percent.
Similarly, the exports from the country also increased by 6.6 percent, going up from $15.88 billion last year to $16.86 billion this year, Dar said.
He said that as many as 2490 companies were registered during these eight months compared to the registration of 2166 companies last year, showing 11 percent growth while in February 2014 about 427 companies were registered, indicating confidence of people in country’s governance system.
He said that Large Scale Manufacturing has also witnessed growth of 13.2 percent which is highest in seven years.
He said that agriculture was one of the top priorities of the government adding that the size of agriculture credits has been enhanced from Rs 336 billion to Rs 380 billion to give boost to this sector.
He said that Karachi Stock Exchange also crossed mark of 27,000, which boosted confidence of the investors.
He said that country’s foreign exchange reserves have mounted up to $9.52 billion as on March 11 which included $4.75 reserves of commercial banks and $4.77 billion of State Bank of Pakistan. He said that the reserves would cross $10 billion by the end of this month.