Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb expressed his confidence in the stability of the Pakistani rupee, stating that he does not foresee a significant devaluation as part of the negotiation for a new multi-billion-dollar programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In an interview with Bloomberg, Aurangzeb—who was on a trip to Washington to attend the spring meetings organised by the IMF and World Bank—said, “There’d be no reason for the rupee to depreciate more than the range of about 6% to 8% seen in a typical year.”
While massive devaluations have accompanied some of Pakistan’s previous IMF loans and are often a condition of the crisis lender’s programmes around the world, nothing comparable should be necessary this time around, he was quoted as saying in the Bloomberg report.
The rupee has been broadly stable for the past five to six months, hovering in a relatively narrow range.
“I don’t see the need for any step change,” Aurangzeb said in the report published on Wednesday. The finance minister cited solid foreign exchange reserves, a stable currency, rising remittances, and steady exports as the reasons for the lack of need for a massive devaluation.
“The only thing which can be a wild card, although in our projections we should be okay, is the oil price,” he said.
