Friday, the Indian rupee opened lower against its US counterpart as a surge in the dollar in the overseas markets weakened the rupee. The rupee dipped to 51.78 per dollar at 11:35 pm ET. The rupee that plunged to a 3-day low of 51.94 against the dollar in late Indian trading yesterday recovered in the New York session and closed the day's deals at 51.50.
The rupee tumbled yesterday following reports, which showed that India's January industrial production and the weekly inflation continued to drop.
The Central Statistical Office said India's industrial production declined 0.5% on a yearly basis in January, following a revised decrease of 0.6% in December. However, production dropped less than a 0.9% fall expected by economists.
India's inflation rate fell for the sixth consecutive week, with the rate for the week ended February coming in at 2.43%, compared to 3.03% in the preceding week.