<\/p>\n
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday chose to maintain the status quo by upholding the key policy rate at 22 per cent for the sixth policy meeting in a row.<\/p>\n
The decision was the first under the newly elected government. It also comes ahead of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)\u2019s last review due on March 14 -18 for the $1.1 billion disbursement under the current Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).<\/p>\n
In a statement, the SBP said the central bank\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had met earlier today and reviewed the current economic developments.<\/p>\n
Regarding the decision to maintain the status quo, the committee noted that although inflation had declined noticeably, it still remained \u201chigh and its outlook is susceptible to risks amidst elevated inflation expectations\u201d.<\/p>\n
On a positive note, the MPC highlighted that latest data continued to depict moderate pick-up in economic activity.<\/p>\n
It said that the better than anticipated external current account balance helped maintain foreign exchange buffers despite weak financial inflows.<\/p>\n
On the global front, it observed that \u201cwhile the broader trend in commodity prices remained benign, oil prices have increased, partly reflecting the continued tense situation in the Red Sea\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese circumstances warrant a cautious approach and continuity of the current monetary stance to bring inflation down to the target range of 5 \u20137pc by September 2025,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The majority of market participants expected no change in the current status quo, according to a report from Bloomberg Economics<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n According the report, \u201cThe IMF has advised a tight policy ahead of its March 14-18 review for a $1.1 billion disbursement under its current loan program\u201d.<\/p>\n Furthermore, it added that it expected the central bank to start monetary easing in April \u201cwhen inflation is likely to have slowed to 20pc\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf the talks with the IMF are favourable as we currently expect, Pakistan will also have a larger reserve buffer,\u201d it said, adding that the current foreign exchange reserves barely cover two months of imports.<\/p>\n Similarly, a survey of key market participants conducted by Topline Securities showed that 55pc of participants expect the policy rate to remain unchanged at 22pc, while the remaining 45pc anticipate a policy rate cut.<\/p>\n In the survey, 60pc of the participants expect the first cut to occur in April. The note said that the SBP will \u201cremain cautious\u201d and adopt a \u201cwatch and see\u201d approach until inflationary pressure goes down.<\/p>\n Previously, the SBP had kept the interest rate unchanged as the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had observed that the frequent and sizeable adjustments in administered energy prices have slowed down the pace of decline in inflation anticipated earlier, besides impeding a sustained decrease in inflation expectations.<\/p>\n Developments since the last MPC meeting include a decline in inflationary pressure from 28.3pc in January to 23.1pc<\/a> in February. However, a hike<\/a> was noted in the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) of 1.35pc.<\/p>\n Moreover, the rupee against the greenback has remained relatively stable at Rs278.63, while the country\u2019s foreign reserves remained at 13.15 billion as of March 8.<\/p>\n More to follow<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday chose to maintain the status quo by upholding the key policy rate at 22 per cent for the sixth policy meeting in a row. The decision was the first under the newly elected government. It also comes ahead of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)\u2019s last review due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/181059042a81fae.jpg?r=113816","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}