The British Pound (GBP) has for the first time in three months made a significant change in its exchange power after days of making slight signs of gaining on its demand on the local market forex.
The pound today bought at Rwf1179.34 and sold at Rwf1202.92 compared to last week when it bought and sold at Rwf1172.75 and Rwf1196.20.
This comes at a time when the Pound has also gained its touch on the international markets after registering a plunge on February 23.
Today, the British Pound rose broadly during early trading in London Monday, as markets responded to a steady drip of Bank of England pronouncements on interest rates.
On the other hand, the US dollar which had a good market touch at the beginning of this month remained low in both its buying and selling power redundantly staggering at Rwf841 and Rwf858 as from last week.
The US dollar however had put off a game changer in the January exchange ratio threatening Rwanda’s predictions of having control over its inflation rates during this year’s budget which is expected to cut down on imports as a way of shock absorbing the forex turbulences.
As of February 9th the US dollar twisted the buying power to purchase at Rwf840 compared to Rwf839 in the previous dates.
Rwanda faced a 2.7 percent drop in last year’s export- import gap and this year’s (2017/18) budget will focus on made in Rwanda products to further cut this deficit.
To shock absorb any drops in forex bargaining power as seen in 2016, the Ministry of finance and economic planning said that the government expects a net increase in domestic revenues of Rwf669.4 billion, which is Rwf6.5 billion higher than the projection of Rwf662.9 billion in the original budget.
The increase comes from the sale of treasury bills and bonds as well as a drawdown from strategic fuel reserves. External grants disbursements were on track registering an amount of Rwf168.3 billion against Rwf168.8 billion projected for the period.
In the meantime, the Rwanda stock and all shares indices remained constant to close at 132.13 and 133.02 respectively with big impact in reduction seen on the Bank of Kigali Shares which dropped Rwf5, to trade at constant Rwf950 per share.
