KARACHI: Pakistan’s national currency continued to lose its value against the US dollar and hit a new all-time low by closing at Rs175.27 on Tuesday, making experts attribute its downward slide to a rising import bill and uncertain outcome of talks with the International Monetary Fund.
The rupee has lost its value by over 15 percent since May when it was trading at about Rs152 against the greenback.
While its decline initially owed a great deal to the country’s rising imports, negative speculation about the prolonged Pakistan-IMF negotiations for another tranche of a $6 billion bailout package has also put the national currency under pressure.
“The Pakistani currency is continuing to lose its value,” Samiullah Tariq, research director at the Pakistan-Kuwait Investment, told Arab News. “A successful outcome of the talks with the IMF will lead to a one-time adjustment of the currency that may appreciate by two rupees or more. However, the actual adjustment will only take place when we begin to manage our current account deficit.”
According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the rupee lost its value by 0.48 percent or 84 paisas in the interbank market on Tuesday.
The Exchang Companies Association of Pakistan’s record showed it also depreciated in the open market where it was trading at Rs175.60 for buying and Rs176.40 for selling against the greenback.
Pakistan’s current account deficit remained high at $3.4 billion during the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal year due to a higher import bill amid increasing prices of commodities in the international market.
Pakistani rupee hits record low against US dollar amid IMF talks, rising import bill
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Pakistani rupee hits record low against US dollar amid IMF talks, rising import bill
- The country’s national currency has lost its value by more than 15 percent since May this year
- Experts say a successful outcome of the IMF talks along with proper management of the current account deficit can help the rupee
Excavations resume at Mohenjo-Daro to study early Harappan city wall
- A joint Pakistani-US team probes multi-phase wall dating to around 2800 BC
- Research remains limited despite Mohenjo-Daro’s archaeological importance
ISLAMABAD: Archaeologists working at the ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro have resumed excavations aimed at better understanding the city’s early development, including the structure and chronology of a massive perimeter wall first identified more than seven decades ago, officials said on Saturday.
The latest excavation season, launched in late December, is part of a joint Pakistani-US research effort approved by the Technical Consultative Committee of the National Fund for Mohenjo-Daro, which met at the site this week to review conservation and research priorities. The work focuses on reassessing the city’s defensive architecture and early occupation layers through controlled excavation and carbon dating.
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, a senior archaeologist involved in the project, told the committee that the excavation targets a section of the city wall originally uncovered by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler in 1950.
“This wall was over seven meters wide and built in multiple phases, reaching a height of approximately seven meters,” Kenoyer said, according to an official statement circulated after the meeting. “The lowest part of the wall appears to have been constructed during the early Harappan period, around 2800 BC.”
Organic material recovered from different excavation levels is being analyzed for carbon dating to establish a clearer timeline of the site’s development, the statement continued, adding that the findings would be published after detailed study.
The committee noted that despite Mohenjo-Daro’s status as one of the world’s earliest and largest urban centers, systematic research at the site has remained limited in recent decades. Its members agreed to expand archaeological studies and invited new research proposals to help formulate a long-term strategy for the site.
The committee also approved the continuation of conservation work on previously excavated material, including dry core drilling data, and reviewed progress on preserving a coin hoard discovered at the site in 2023, the results of which are expected to be published after conservation is completed.
Mohenjo-Daro, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Pakistan’s Sindh province, was a major center of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished more than 4,000 years ago.
