Karachi - Pakistan rupee recovered by 3 per cent to a 15-day high against the US dollar following last week's central bank's monetary tightening measures, dealers said on Monday.

The rupee on Monday was trading at 67.60-68.05 (buying-selling) against the dollar in the inter-bank market after hitting as low as 70.00 at one point of time last Thursday.

The central State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) late Thursday slapped various monetary tightening steps to stem rising inflation.

The measures included hiking up benchmark interest rates, popularly known as three-day repo, by 150 basis points to 12 per cent from the previous 10.5 per cent.

Since then, according to dealers, the rupee is gaining strength. On Friday, the rupee recovered to 68.50 and 68.60. On Saturday, the rupee further gained against the dollar to 67.90 and 68.00.

"The central bank measures are showing results in strengthening the rupee," said forex dealer Ikhlaq Haider.

The overall rising inflation, which at 11 per cent is already at a 30-year high, and rising import costs, due to soaring oil prices, are major reasons of putting an immense pressure on the SBP's fragile hard currency reserves.

According to Friday's SBP weekly report, the country's foreign exchange reserves fell further by 322 million dollars to 11.885 billion dollars.

The foreign exchange reserves had hit an all-time high of 16.486 billion US dollars on October 31, but have been falling since then due to import pressures and outflows by foreign investors from the stock market over political uncertainty after embattled President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3.

Meanwhile, the rupee remained showing steady to weak trend in the unofficial open market where it was trading 68.70/69.20 against the dollar. (dpa)