Indian rupee ended substantially weaker against dollar on Friday on account of dollar demand from importers and banks, amid losses in equity markets. Sentiments remained down beat on report that United Nations has downgraded its GDP growth forecast for India for 2016 to 7.5 percent from 8.2 percent estimated earlier, largely due to slow progress in implementing reform policies. Investor’s failed to get solace with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India has emerged among the few large economies in the world with a promising economic outlook. On the global front, euro continues to hold its own against the US dollar, and received some help from a solid Eurozone Trade Balance report for November, posting a surplus of EUR 22.7 billion, its best showing since April 2015.
Finally, the rupee ended at 67.60, 31 paise weaker from its previous close of 67.29 on Thursday. The currency touched a high and low of 67.70 and 67.25 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 67.43 and for Euro stood at 73.38 on January 15, 2016. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 57.25 the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 97.1095. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
