Rupee closes higher at 65.24 against dollar

The rupee continued to strengthen against the dollar to close at 65.24 per dollar, up 77 paise from the previous close, helped by exporter sales and dollar's weakness overseas.

The Indian currency opened trading 8 paise higher against the greenback at 65.92 on the interbank foreign exchange market today, against Thursday's close of 66.01 per dollar and continued its firm trend in the absence of any negative.

The market also took heart from higher dollar inflows and announcement of possible steps to reduce the fuel import bill.

At 65.24 a dollar, the rupee is up 351 paise from its life low hit recently and has spurted 239 paise, or 3.53 per cent, in just three sessions. This is also the highest level for the rupee since 26 August, when it had closed at 64.30.

The rupee has been looking up ever since the new RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, who took over as RBI chief on Wednesday,  announced a number of steps to boost dollar inflows and enhanced limits for exporters to re-book cancelled forward exchange contracts and a window to swap foreign currency deposits.

News from the G20 Summit in St Petersburg in Russia, including the enhanced currency swap agreement with Japan  also bolstered market sentiment (See: India, Japan expand currency swap facility to $50 billion).