April 19, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1429

KARACHI, April 18: The rupee fell on Friday to touch a new 6-year low, and dealers said the currency might fall further because of high demand for the US dollar from importers, dealers said.

The rupee traded as low as 63.94 to the dollar, down from Thursday’s low of 63.85, dealers said.

Persistent demand for the dollar from importers and a lack

of inflows could pull the currency down to its life-time low of 64.40 traded in September 2001 or even lower, said a dealer at a foreign bank.

“There are still some importers and ‘corporates’ looking for dollars and we don’t see any significant inflows coming through,” the dealer said.

“Any intervention by the central bank may give some temporary respite,” another dealer said.

The rupee has now lost more than a per cent this week and nearly 4 per cent this year.

In the money market, overnight call rates ended at 10.40 per cent, unchanged from Thursday.

Dealers said shortage of funds in the inter-bank market might force some banks to borrow from the central bank later on Friday or on Saturday when reverse repo contracts were scheduled to mature resulting in an outflow of Rs21.80 billion.

Dealers said the next major cash inflow in the inter-bank market was due on April 24, when Rs53.30 billion would flow in from maturing government securities.

As a result, dealers expected rates to stay firm with more discounting likely early next week.—Reuters