The Silicon Review ^Asia

According to figures from the central bank, the Pakistani rupee dropped 9.6% versus the dollar on Thursday. This is the largest one-day decline in more than 20 years.

The decline occurs after foreign exchange firms abolished an exchange rate cap, which was a crucial requirement of the IMF as part of a package of economic reforms it had agreed upon with the cash-strapped South Asian nation. According to the central bank, the currency's official value against the dollar ended the day at 255.4 rupees, up from 230.9 on Wednesday.

Pakistan is in critical need of external finance as a result of its severe balance of payments problem. The foreign exchange reserves of the country, which have enough money only to cover less than three weeks' worth of imports, dropped by $923 million to $3.68 billion recently.

In 2019, Pakistan received a $6 billion IMF bailout. A further $1 billion was added to it last year to assist the nation in recovering from disastrous floods, but the IMF then suspended payments in November as a result of Pakistan's failure to make further progress with fiscal restructuring. On Thursday, the lender disclosed that it would dispatch a mission to the nation at the end of January to talk about restarting the program.