KARACHI: The rupee lost value against the US dollar during intra-day trading on Tuesday, hitting the 205.7 level in the inter-bank market amid unconfirmed reports suggesting a delay in resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
The rupee was being quoted at 205.70 in the inter-bank, a depreciation of Re1.14 against the greenback, at around 11:30am.
On Monday, the local currency closed at 204.56, an appreciation of Rs0.29 or 0.14% against the US dollar, on the back of anticipation that the IMF bailout programme would be revived.
However, investor-sentiment was hurt after reports claiming that the IMF programme has been further delayed and deadlock is over anti-corruption laws along with other financial measures of increasing gas and electricity prices.
Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Monday dismissed such reports and stated that there was “no truth” to them.
“I have been reading with some amusement all the tweets and stories about IMF program being postponed or delayed due to some anti-corruption law. There is no truth to it. The IMF program is on track,” tweeted Miftah.
Meanwhile, no one in the Finance Ministry was willing to respond to questions on whether any response from the relevant ministries had been received on sections in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) from the Fund concerning their ministries.
The finance minister stated during a press conference on 1st July 2022 that power, petroleum and other ministries-related sections in the MEFP were sent to them for their response.
He further said replies would be correlated before dispatching to the Fund.