Kathmandu, February 11

Nepali rupee has tumbled to a fresh all-time low against the US dollar, as the Indian rupee, with which the country’s currency is pegged, came under pressure.

Nepali rupee, which closed at 108.90 against the greenback on Thursday, will lose 58 paisa by the time markets open on Friday and trade at 109.48, shows the reference rate of Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank.

Nepali currency has never fallen to this level against the dollar. The last time the currency had hit a historic low was on January 20, when the value of rupee had slumped to 109.24 per dollar.

Nepali rupee’s rise and fall depends on the movement of the Indian currency because Nepali rupee is pegged to Indian rupee at 1.6.

On Thursday, Indian currency opened for trading at 67.95 per dollar, touched a low of 68.35 during intra-day trading, before closing at 68.30, the lowest since August 28, 2013.

Indian rupee fell today as the Indian benchmark stock index tumbled to a 21-month low.

“The Sensex fell 3.4 per cent, or 807.07 points, to 22,951.83. This was the fourth consecutive session when the index closed lower. Since February 5, the index has fallen 6.82 per cent. So far this year the index has fallen 12.12 per cent,” LiveMint said.

With this fall in the index, overseas investors have withdrawn $1.9 billion from local shares this year, Bloomberg reported.

“The continuous fall in risky assets across the globe and the trend in liquidity moving towards safe haven assets like bonds and gold are expanding the negative implications on the Indian market. The turmoil in the domestic market also does highlight the possibility of margin pressure which may continue to disturb the market,” LiveMint quoted Vinood Nair Geojit, head of fundamental research at BNP Paribas Financial Services, as saying.

Indian stock investors are also cautious ahead of the release of data on industrial production and inflation. The data are scheduled to be made public on Friday.

Bloomberg has estimated Index of Industrial Production to hover around zero for December, as against a negative of 3.2 per cent in November. Inflation, on the other hand, is expected to stand at 5.4 per cent in January as against 5.61 per cent in December.