KARACHI, July 17: The rupee remained under pressure on Thursday for the third consecutive day and lost about four per cent against the dollar suggesting that the recent steps by the State Bank of Pakistan have failed to check its devaluation.

Currency dealers traded dollar at Rs72.06 while the offered rate was Rs72.15 on Thursday, showing a rising trend of the greenback.

Dealers said the trading was being made strictly under the tight guidelines of the central bank and almost all deals were made in the system, but dollar was still rising.On July 8, the State Bank took some strict actions to strengthen the exchange rate, and to save the rupee from further devaluation and reduce the dollar demand by curbing the speculative activities.

The measures included reduction of time for currency trading, suspension of forward booking system and cut in advance payment against import to 25 per cent from 50 per cent.

It was also decided that the State Bank will provide foreign exchange to the authorized dealer for the import of all categories of furnace oil.

The SBP had been providing oil import bills up to 70 per cent while the private sector was responsible for import of about 30 per cent oil. However, SBP once again took all responsibility to pay oil bills, the biggest bill in the list of imported items for the country.

The SBP took these actions when rupee touched 73.90 against the greenback and lost 7.2 per cent against the US currency in just seven days.

However, SBP’s measures suddenly paid off and the falling rupee bounced back the next day to gain 3.2 per cent against the US dollar in a single session.

The dollar started falling and fell even below Rs70 but impact of State Bank’s measures could hardly last for a few days.

“Inflow and outflow of dollars show a complete imbalanced picture of our external accounts,” said a currency dealer.

He said neither the government is able to use its influence to receive the ‘promised $.3.5 billion dollars’ from friendly countries, nor did it hit any agreement with international donors to borrow dollars.

The SBP took another measure on July 11 by warning exporters to surrender their export proceeds which were not surrendered even after expiry of the date.

The SBP advised banks to launch a campaign to bring the stuck up export proceeds into the country.

“Now the State Bank has used all options to tighten its grip over the exchange rate but still the devaluation of rupee is not under control,” said Abid Saleem, an analyst.

Analysts said there was no way to stop rupee from falling as it reflects the weakness of the economy.

Earlier, the currency experts had been talking about fall of rupee up to Rs76 which is the price of per litre petrol. They were of the view that rupee has been pegged with the dollar equal to per litre petrol.

The SBP’s series of measures negated the idea in first three days since July 9 but once again the rupee started marching towards Rs76.

“Banks made forward booking deal at Rs4.10 for six months,” said a currency dealer which reflected the weakness of rupee and approach of the market players.