Karachi  - The Pakistani rupee further slumped to nearly 68 against the US dollar on Wednesday amid a shortage of hard money in the local market and rising global oil prices, dealers said.

This prompted the central State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to summon two back-to-back meetings with foreign currency dealers and bankers to streamline the availability of the dollar.

The rupee in the open market was trading at 67.30/67.70 (buying/selling) against the dollar as compared with 66.90/67 on Tuesday. In the inter-bank market, too, it weakened further to 66.45/66.50 against 65.20/65.30 on Tuesday.

"The underlying weakness of the current account deficit and the balance of payments is keeping the rupee in a tight spot," said a dealer, Rehanuddin, at Invest Cap Securities.

Eighty-five per cent of Pakistan's crude oil consumption is met through imports and Tuesday's international oil prices at 123 US dollars a barrel impacted the rupee on Wednesday, dealers said.

Dealers speculated the rupee might hit up to 70 against the dollar by the end of May.

Pakistan's trade deficit has already ballooned by 45 per cent to 14.5 billion dollars between July 2007 and March 2008, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics, severely straining fragile foreign currency reserves, which are held by the SBP.

The SBP reserves are down by four billion dollars since October last year to 12.65 billion dollars by the end of April.

The bank called a meeting with the currency dealers on Thursday and bankers on Friday to discuss the new rules to halt the rupee's downward trend, SBP official sources said.

SBP Governor Shamshad Akhtar would chair both meetings.

Last week, the SBP slapped new rules on exchange companies, forcing them to sell a minimum 15 per cent of all foreign remittances which they receive into the inter-bank market as against the 10 per cent previously required.

The central bank also tightened rules on the unbridled buying and selling of dollars in the open market by directing exchange companies to submit details for all transactions above 5,000 US dollars and providing a minimum 25 per cent of their entire foreign exchange to the banking sector. dpa