KARACHI : The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday revised upward its policy rate by 2.50 basic points . With the new upward revision , the policy rate goes up to 12.25 bps . The SBP took the decision of upward revision in its emergent meeting held on Thursday .
The central bank said the prices of the commodity in the global market can show upward trend for longer period . It also feared that US central bank may revise its rate .
Khurrum Shahzad , an economic expert , while commenting on hike in interest is disturbing . He said the SBP’s decision is too late to do something good. khurrum Shahzad suggested immediate ban on all kinds of unnecessary imports.
The central bank issued a statement which said that in an emergency meeting today (Thursday), Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to raise policy rate by 250bps to 12.25%. This strong and proactive policy response was necessitated by a deterioration in outlook for inflation and increase in risks to external stability since last meeting
The MPC noted that SBP is also taking further complementary actions to reduce pressures on inflation and the current account, namely an increase in the interest rate on the export refinance scheme (EFS) and widening the set of import items subject to cash margin requirements. It added that looking ahead, the MPC noted that today’s decisive actions, together with a reduction in domestic political uncertainty and prudent fiscal policies, should help ensure that Pakistan’s robust economic recovery from Covid remains sustainable.
