USD/INR closed at 73.56 against its open at 73.83.Dollar ended at one week low Friday on selling by foreign banks along with exporters amid a weak greenback. In a bid the curb outflow of foreign exchange and to stabilise and boost domestic industry the Government of India doubled import tax to 20% from 10% on eight key telecom equipments.
Exporters expecting not further gains in the spot pair in the near term covered their dollar positions.The greenback faltered against other major currencies as Treasury yields ended sharply lower after data showed retail inflation in the US rose at lower rate than anticipated.
The government hiked import duty to 20% from 10% at present on 8 key telecom items ranging from optical transport equipment, combination of one or more of packet optical transport product or switch, optical transport network products and IP radios, soft switches and VoIP equipment, packet transport node products, multi-protocol label switching transport profile products beside multiple input/multiple output to long term evolution products.
Sensex provisionally ends 683 points higher with 29 components in the green.