One dollar equals 146 Rupees: How Pakistani currency is at its crumbling worst

The Pakistani government has maintained there is no need to panic because an IMF bailout package, it says, will normalise the situation.

Reuters File Photo

Pakistan's shambolic economic state has been prevailing for more than a year. And even with the recent announcement that a deal for a bailout package worth $6 billion has been sealed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the ominous signs refuse to fade. On Wednesday, the country's currency crashed to an all-time low against the US dollar to further deepen the crisis.

The Pakistani rupee went into freefall and weakened significantly to 146.25 against one US dollar. This is a record low for the currency which has oscillated between PNR 140 and PNR 145 in recent months. Prior to this, the exchange rate figure stood at PNR 123 for every US dollar on the day Imran Khan took oath as PM in August of last year and was at PNR 115 only months prior to this.

In the past, the country's central bank has repeatedly devalued the currency in a bid to deal with a possible payment crisis.

Pakistan's ARY News reported on Wednesday that the country has lost 50 per cent of its reserves in the last two years. The report, quoting Imran Khan's advisor Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, however stated that the IMF bailout package will normalise the prevailing situation.

Not many in Pakistan, however, are too pleased with the prevailing situation. While opposition parties have only intensified their attack against the PTI government, common people looking at summer vacations abroad too have been hit hard at what many of them term as an appaling exchange rate. Many have also taken to social media to vent their ire.