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
Pakistan’s Sindh announces judicial inquiry into deadly Karachi plaza fire
- Around 80 people were killed in Karachi Gul Plaza fire that broke out on Jan. 17, says Sindh information minister
- Says initial fact-finding committee discovered fire tenders were provided water with delay, which affected firefighting
ISLAMABAD: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon announced on Thursday that the provincial government has requested a judicial inquiry into a deadly Karachi shopping plaza inferno that killed around 80 people earlier this month.
The fire broke out at Karachi’s famous Gul Plaza, a multi-story shopping complex in the city’s Saddar area, on the night of Jan. 17. The blaze killed 80 and took three days to extinguish, while rescue and relief efforts took over a week.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference, Memon said a Sindh cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, reviewed a fact-finding committee report on the Karachi Gul Plaza fire.
He said the fact-finding committee discovered that the Civil Defense department conducted fire safety audits of the mall and other buildings since 2023, but no effective, precautionary or legal action was taken to ensure such incidents were avoided. He said as a result, the Civil Defense director and the department’s additional controller for district South were both suspended.
“A letter is being written to the honorable chief justice of the Sindh High Court in which we are requesting the chief justice to appoint a serving judge for a judicial inquiry,” Memon said.
“So that we can review everything in accordance with the law himself and take decisions on it.”
Memon said that there were around 2,000 to 2,500 people in the building when the fire broke out, adding that these included workers and visitors.
He said the sub-committee had also noted that fire tenders were provided water with delay which affected the firefighting services of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Rescue 1122 and fire brigades.
The minister said the government had also suspended the chief engineer and in-charge hydrants of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation, and that action will be taken against them.
Memon said the committee had also concluded that the KMC, Rescue 1122 and fire brigades’ firefighting tools and training to deal with an inferno of such a scale were “inadequate.”
He said the government has also suspended the senior director of municipal services in the KMC and that departmental action against him will be taken for not ensuring that the fire staff was properly prepared to tackle such a blaze.
The minister said the sub-committee had directed the relevant department to carry out a needs assessment so that the firefighting capabilities of the provincial and local government are further strengthened.
Fires have become an increasingly frequent occurrence in Karachi, a megacity of more than 20 million people, where fire services remain severely overstretched and under-resourced relative to population density and the scale of commercial activity.
Successive deadly incidents have drawn criticism of the provincial Sindh administration over lax enforcement of building codes, inadequate inspections and limited emergency response capacity.
Sindh’s opposition parties, especially the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan, accuse the Sindh government of neglecting Karachi’s infrastructural development. The provincial government rejects these allegations.
