KARACHI: A new house financing scheme for overseas Pakistanis will encourage more external investment that will help the rupee make gains next week, analysts said on Saturday. A day ago, Prime Minister Imran Khan launched “Roshan Apna Ghar” scheme that will enable overseas Pakistanis to buy residential property for themselves and for their families in the country. This initiative is a ray of hope for the local currency, which depreciated massively during the last couple of weeks. Pakistan desperately needs such schemes to bring dollars into the country to support the external sector. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) launched Roshan Digital Account (RDA) on September 10, 2020 for nonresident Pakistanis. This scheme helped the country bring $2 billion in such accounts. The SBP on August 25, 2021 announced the launch of the Roshan Apna Ghar Scheme for the nonresident Pakistanis. After this announcement, the rupee recovered 66 paisas against the dollar in the next two days to close the week at Rs165.62. The local currency fell to Rs166.28 against the greenback in the interbank foreign exchange market on August 25, 2021. The inflows of $2.75 billion by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on August 24, 2021 failed to support the local currency. The local unit witnessed a massive decline since the start of the current fiscal year. —agencies
