KARACHI: Pakistan’s currency market bounced back on Wednesday to gain 1 rupee against the US dollar in intra-day trading after long-time ally Saudi Arabia announced a support package of $4.2 billion, traders and bankers said.
The Saudi money will help Pakistan to shore up its foreign reserves, which has been shrinking.
The rupee closed the previous session at 175.60 against the dollar. It has depreciated around 13.6 percent since May.
“Rupee appreciation is result of the Saudi funding announcement, widely seen as a positive surprise much needed to bolster the external account,” Saad Hashemy, executive director at BMA Capital, told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday $3 billion to support Pakistan’s foreign reserves, as well as extending financing of the oil derivatives trade for a total of $1.2 billion during the year, Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said.
Pakistan has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the last two weeks to secure a $1 billion tranche, but its sixth review remained inconclusive.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan thanked Saudi Arabia.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has always been there for Pakistan in our difficult times, including now when the world confronts rising commodity prices,” Imran Khan said in a tweet.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia gave $3 billion in foreign currency support and further loan worth up to $3 billion in deferred payments for oil imports.
Pakistan’s rupee rebounds on $4.2 billion Saudi support package
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Pakistan’s rupee rebounds on $4.2 billion Saudi support package
- Country’s currency market bounced back on Wednesday to gain 1 rupee against the U.S. dollar in intra-day trading
- Pakistan has been in talks with IMF for the last two weeks to secure $1 billion tranche of $6 billion bailout loan
Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea
- Rescued migrants were taken to a temporary facility on Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini
- Greece has made deportations of rejected asylum seekers a priority under its migration policy
ATHENS: Greece’s Coast Guard rescued about 540 migrants from a fishing boat off Europe’s southernmost island of Gavdos on Friday, one of the biggest groups to reach the country in recent months.
The migrants were found during a Greek search operation some 16 nautical miles (29.6 km) off Gavdos, a Coast Guard statement said. They are all well and are being taken to a temporary facility on the nearby island of Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini, a Coast Guard official said, adding most of the migrants were men from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan.
In a separate incident on Thursday, the EU’s border agency Frontex rescued 65 men and five women from two migrant boats in distress off Gavdos, the Greek Coast Guard said.
Greece was on the front line of a 2015-16 migration crisis when more than a million people from the Middle East and Africa landed on its shores before moving on to other European countries, mainly Germany.
Flows have ebbed since then, but both Crete and Gavdos — the two Mediterranean islands nearest to the African coast — have seen a steep rise in migrant boats, mainly from Libya, reaching their shores over the past year and deadly accidents remain common along that route.
Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy will be eligible for help in dealing with migratory pressures under a new EU mechanism when the bloc’s pact on migration and asylum enters into force in mid-2026.
The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said deportation of rejected asylum seekers will be a priority.
