Rupee Weakens to 42.44 per U.S. Dollar

Posted by Reading Time: < 1 minute

May 15 – The rupee weakened by about 34 paise at Rs 42.44/46 per US dollar on Wednesday, making it costlier for the travellers and students going abroad, reported the Hindustan Times.

At the same time, the remittances from those working abroad would fetch more money now, than it did a couple of weeks back when the rupee hovered around Rs 40 against the dollar. The rupee weakened against the dollar by 6.52 percent from April 10, 2008 when it closed at Rs 39.84 against a dollar.

On the corporate front, the weakening rupee will help exporters to fetch more bucks for the same unit of exports. No wonder, the market has given a thumps up for the information technology stocks on Wednesday by taking the IT sector index on Bombay Stock Exchange up by 3.8 per cent to 4,256 points. On the contrary, imports will become costlier to the extent of weakness in the domestic currency.

Mostly the weakness in the rupee arose from the spiralling global crude prices, and the need for the oil companies to buy dollars to meet their import commitments. Oil, India's biggest import, traded below $124 a barrel, after touching a record near $127 on Tuesday. The country's oil import bill shot up by more than a third in 2007/08.