The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which was believed to have been preventing the rupee's surge past 40.40 level, remained sidelined on Friday morning.
In fairly active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the local currency resumed higher at 40.3350/3450 per dollar from overnight close of 40.35/36 per dollar and later improved further to 40.32/33 per dollar in late morning deals.
Attributing the rupee's strength to a sharp rally in equity markets, forex dealers said the portfolio inflows into the fast growing economy amounted to nearly USD five billion in just 14 days since 29th June.
The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex surged by another 133 points during morning trading.
The inflows crossed USD 8.5 billion figure in the current year, surpassing last year's inflow of USD 7.99 billion.
Meanwhile, the dollar remained near its all-time low against the euro in overseas markets on Thursday. - DDNEWS India
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