It is not rupee sliding but dollar strengthening, says Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: A day after State Bank of India Chairman Dinesh Khara, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the weakening of the Indian rupee is essentially due to the strengthening of the dollar index.

Sitharaman was addressing the media in Washington at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The Indian rupee is performing much better than any other emerging market currency, the Finance Minister added.

“Efforts are being made to make sure that there is not too much volatility but not to intervene in the market to fix the value of the rupee. So, containing the volatility is the only exercise that RBI is involved in. I have said before that the rupee will find its own level,” Sitharaman said.

The rupee closed at 82.19 against the US dollar on Friday amid a firm greenback overseas and sliding crude oil prices.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened at 82.26 and witnessed a high of 82.12 and a low of 82.43 before settling at 82.19.

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, advanced 0.56 per cent to 112.99.