The State Bank of Pakistan will monitor all foreign exchange transactions with finer granularity to curb outgoing remittances and stabilize value of the Pakistan Rupee, reports on Thursday suggest.
Foreign exchange firms in Pakistan are currently required to report transactions above $5,000 at the close of business every day. Transactions below $5,000 were not the State Bank’s radar previously. However, going forward every transaction will have to report every day.
State Bank’s circular to the exchange companies today said, “Exchange companies would report, on daily basis, all transactions, regardless of amount, made by them on account of sales and purchased over the counter, besides daily reporting of outward remittances.”
Exchange firms are also required to submit daily information about their “contract” transactions of sale and purchase with other exchange firms and authorized dealers. The central bank has also asked the exchange companies that daily statement of FYC cash sales/purchase should reach SBP the same day, latest by 7 pm, as per proper procedure described by the State Bank.
SBP has warned the exchange companies that any delay in reporting will be dealt strictly under related rules and regulations. In another move, the SBP has also imposed condition of producing CNIC and submitting a copy at the time of buying and selling of even one dollar at any exchange company, and now exchange companies would report to SBP with CNIC numbers. Sources said that SBP has taken these steps after continued deprecation of rupee against dollar in the wake of the rising smuggling of dollars to the Afghanistan.
“The smuggling is being made through Chaman and Peshawar border to Afghanistan nowadays, which has created some shortage of dollars in the domestic market”, they said. However, they said, steps taken by the central bank would result in negative impact on the currency market, and people would move to black market. Despite SBP’s actions, the rupee is being depreciated against dollar, and on Wednesday it was being traded at Rs 86.60 per dollar in the open market, they said.
No comments:
Post a Comment