Mauritius’s rupee added the most against the dollar in almost two weeks

Mauritius’s rupee added the most against the dollar in almost two weeks on low demand from importers and after Moody’s Investors Service put the U.S. on review for a credit downgrade, damping dollar appetite.

The rupee advanced as much as 0.7 percent to 28.30 per dollar, before trading 0.2 percent up at 28.45 by 2:06 p.m. in Port Louis, the capital, according to Bloomberg data.

The dollar slipped against 12 of its 16 major peers after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said it would consider buying more government bonds to boost the world’s biggest economy. The rupee closely tracks the euro’s movements against the dollar, with an average correlation of 0.89 this month. A value of 1 would mean they move in lock step.

“Importers aren’t active as they already settled an important portion of their invoices at the end of last month, which coincides with the closing of annual accounts for most local companies,” Fabien Gebert, treasurer at GML, an investment group that says it’s the country’s biggest by revenue, said by phone. “There’s also the influence of the euro-dollar swing.”

Data from the Bank of Mauritius’s website show that buying prices for dollars ranged from 27.5338 rupees to 27.6983 rupees, while the average selling level was 28.9963 rupees