mumbai the indian currencys greek tragedy continued on wednesday as the rupee closed at a new alltime low of 545 marking a 22 fall already this year all asian currencies not just the rupee have lost value against the dollar due the eurozone crisis triggered by greeces imminent exit from the common currency but that is unlikely to be of much consolation to households that are set to suffer the effects of inflation as all imports including oil get costlier outbound tourists and students too will have to shell out more rupees for the same amount of dollars the falling rupee will also have an impact on businesses this could be a death blow for various indian companies one key aspect is the impact on indian companies in terms of the marktomarket losses on the borrowings they made through ecb and fccb routes said jagannadham thunuguntla strategist and head of research at smc global securities he pointed out that the 22 drop has imposed an additional burden of 66 billion on indian corporates that have borrowed money overseas accounting laws require companies to make provisions on foreign exchange losses on a quarterly basis on wednesday the reserve bank of india lost a crucial battle to keep the rupee within earlier support levels as the domestic currency lost 70 paise from tuesdays close dealers said that having crossed the previous low of 543 the rupee is now in uncharted territory although the root cause was global dealers said the rbis hand was weakened due to the governments inability to come out with policy measures to attract fund inflows or reduce the deficit more than the rupee weakening it was the euro collapsing and the dollar gaining against all currencies although rbi managed to pull back the rupee to 538 on tuesday overnight there was news that the greek president had failed to avert a repeat election raising the possibility of a greek exit from the euro which resulted in the rupee opening below 54 said harihar krishnamoorthy treasurer first rand bank he added that although the rupee rallied briefly when finance minister pranab mukherjee spoke about austerity measures it slipped again when no announcements were forthcoming from the government this is not unique to india we are part of a global economy said k r kamath chairman punjab national bank according to data compiled by bloomberg the ringgit slumped 11 in kuala lumpur the korean won dropped 1 the philippine peso weakened 09 and thailands baht fell 05 though measures like dollar bonds creating a special window for dollar sales to the oil companies and enhancing the debt limit for foreign institutional investors apart from physical intervention may curb shortterm losses structural reforms and greater commitment by the government towards fiscal discipline are key for ensuring sustained gains in the rupee said upasna bhardwaj economist ing vysya bank