MUMBAI: In line with local equities, the rupee today closed just about stable by rising 1 paise to settle at 45.21/22 against the US currency, amid sustained capital outflows.

"GBP and euro's slight gain supported rupee to trade stronger against the dollar, but the month-end payments of oil importers and flat local equities restricted the gains. Looking at the dollar, USD/INR pair is expected to climb 45.50 in coming days," Alpari (Forex) India CEO Pramit Brahmbhatt said.

"The trading range for the USD/INR will be between 45.00- 45.50 tomorrow," he added.

In a lacklustre trading at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the local unit opened higher at 45.17/18 from yesterday's close of 45.22/23 and touched a high of 45.12 due to initial recovery in stocks and weak dollar overseas.

Sustained capital outflows, too, helped the rupee to rebound from overnight close.

However, dollar demand from importers in the later part of the day weighed on the rupee and it fell back to a low of 45.265 before closing at 45.21/22. In last two sessions, it had fallen by 25 paise.

Importers bought dollars to meet their monthly needs. Indian benchmark Sensex, which was up by about 117 points in afternoon deals, reacted downwards and closed slightly up by 18.64 points, or 0.10 per cent, at 18,012.

IMEC's focus is not just on R&D, but finding solutions that can be easily adapted by industry, which is one of the drivers for setting up the India centre. The joint venture will combine IMEC's chip design and research capabilities with Wipro's systems engineering skills.

IMEC believes that it will not be difficult to recruit the right kind of talent, which is often a stumbling block for other high-end research. "It is likely given the location that many will be from India, we have 67 nationalities working here in Belgium. In today's world it doesn't matter where you locate R&D, what matters is the talent," he said.