The Indian rupee is poised to end 2015 on a discouraging note, with the currency expected to fall for the fifth straight year, after having hit a two-year low below 67 against the US dollar in August this year.

The Indian rupee had closed at 63.33 against the US dollar on 31 December, 2014. If the rupee closes at around 66.50 on 31 December, 2015, it would have lost about 5%.

The rupee was trading at 66.22 on Thursday, 24 December, down 0.16% from its previous close. It had plunged to its two-year low of 67.13 against the dollar on 14 December this year. 

The currency, which was hovering between 62.75 in April and 63.63 in July this year, is now trading at around 66-67, the new normal in a year that saw many landmark developments, the latest being the US Federal Reserve hiking interest rate by 25 basis points on 16 December.

In August this year, Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, had said that the fluctuation in the value of rupee against the US dollar during the April to July period was due to supply-demand imbalances in the foreign exchange market and the general appreciation of US dollar globally.

The dollar has appreciated further since then.

Though the impending US Fed interest rate hike kept the Indian and other emerging stock markets on the tenterhooks and periodically triggered FII dollar outflows, it was more than offset than the drastic fall in crude oil prices, reducing India's oil import bill and relieving the rupee from trade imbalance-induced pressures.

A recent estimate by the union petroleum and natural gas ministry's Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) said the country is likely to save about $44 billion in oil imports, from $113 billion last year.

The major factors triggering the downward move of the Indian rupee included heavy selling by FIIs and the slowdown in China. 

On 22 December, the union commerce ministry, shrugging off concerns on declining exports, said that the rupee had gone "from being one of the worst performing currencies to one of the best performing currencies against the dollar during the current financial year."

Traders expect the Indian rupee to trade in the range of 65.50-70.00 against the US dollar in 2016, reports PTI.