The dollar recorded an increase of 76 paisas against the rupee in the interbank foreign exchange market on Wednesday.

The greenback was trading at Rs283.80 at the closing of the interbank market, against the closing of Rs 283.04 the previous day. In the open market, the dollar was available at Rs290.

The fall in the value of the local unit continued a day after it shed Rs3.78 against the dollar as the importers rushed to buy dollars for import payments.

The coalition government has assured the International Monetary Fund of withdrawing the circular on prioritisation in providing foreign exchange for certain types of imports introduced in December 2022.

“Going forward, we will refrain from formal and informal guidance on the exchange rates of FX intermediaries and will maintain a framework free of restrictions on payments and transfers for current international transactions and MCPs,” the government in its letter-of-intent stated.

The government had imposed curbs on the imports of luxury items earlier to provide stability to the foreign exchange reserves of the country by controlling the dollar outflow.

However, the government later lifted the curbs in a bid to meet the conditions of the global lending institution for the disbursement of around $1 billion.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange recorded a range-bound session closing in a positive zone amid lack of positive triggers, analysts said.

The benchmark KSE-100 Index recorded an increase of 85.78 points, or 0.19%, to reach 45095.11 points. The KSE-30 Index gained 110.82 points, 0.69%, to hit 16077.54 points on Wednesday.