KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet on Monday (today) in Karachi to decide the country’s monetary policy.
The central bank will issue the Monetary Policy Statement through a press release the same day. This would mark the seventh monetary policy announcement since September 2020.
The SBP kept the policy rate unchanged at 7 percent at its last review meeting held in September. In response to the COVID-19 crisis and with a view to supporting the economic growth, the central bank has reduced interest rates by 625 basis points to 7 percent in the easing cycle from March to June 2020.
The monetary policy decision comes at a time of increased concern regarding the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on Pakistan’s economy. A few months ago, the SBP successfully made foreign debt repayment of over $1 billion on the maturity of Sukuk.
In December 2019, the foreign exchange reserves surpassed the $10-billion mark owing to inflows from multilateral lenders including $1.3 billion from the ADB.
Read more: Monetary policy: SBP reduces interest rates by 75bps to 12.5 pct
Foreign investment of over $3 billion in the debt market in the current fiscal year also played an important role in the growing foreign currency reserves.
This is a developing story….
