Bringing down high inflation around the world will be painful and could even crash growth but must be done quickly to prevent rapid price growth from becoming entrenched, the world's top central bank chiefs said on Wednesday.

Inflation is breaking multi-decade highs around the world as soaring energy prices, post-pandemic supply chain bottlenecks and in some cases red-hot labour markets are pushing up the cost of everything, and threatening to set off a hard-to-break wage-price spiral.

"The process is highly likely to involve some pain but the worst pain would be from failing to address this high inflation and allowing it to become persistent," U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at the European Central Bank's annual conference in Sintra, Portugal.

Echoing Powell's words, ECB President Christine Lagarde said the low inflation of the pre-pandemic era would not return and that the ECB, which has persistently underestimated price growth, had to act now because price growth was likely to remain above the 2% target for years to come.

RISKS

Engineering policy tightening to avoid a recession in the United States is certainly possible, Powell said, adding that the pathway was narrow and there were no guarantees of success.

"Is there a risk that we would go too far? Certainly there's a risk, but I wouldn’t agree that it's the biggest risk to the economy," he said. "The bigger mistake to make, let's put it that way, would be to fail to restore price stability."

Augustin Carstens, the General Manager at the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella group of central banks, said policymakers had taken the first step in recognising they had a problem. Now their job was to tighten policy, as risks were mounting.

"They should try to... prevent the full transition from a low inflation environment to a high inflation environment where this high inflation gets entrenched," Carstens told the ECB gathering. "You need to prevent this vicious cycle from kicking in."

The ECB has already flagged rate hikes in both July and September while the Fed increased rates by 0.75 percentage points in June and may opt for a similar move in July.

The Bank of England raised rates by 25 basis points to 1.25% this month - its fifth successive move -and said it would act "more forcefully" in the future if it saw a greater persistence of inflation.

"There will be circumstances in which we will have to do more," BoE Governor Andrew Bailey told the conference. "We're not there yet in terms of the next meeting. We're still a month away, but that's on the table."

"But you shouldn't assume it's the only thing on the table," he said, referring to another 25 basis point hike.

However, Bailey also warned that the British economy was now clearly at a turning point and starting to slow.

SOURCE: REUTERS

Lahore: The Lahore High Court (LHC) will announce the reserved verdict on pleas against the election of Hamza Shahbaz as Chief Minister of Punjab.

According to details, a five-member larger bench headed by Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan resumed hearing the pleas today.

During the hearing, the bench sought arguments from Hamza’s lawyer that whether the Supreme Court’s verdict on the presidential reference related to defecting lawmakers applies to past events.

Hamza’s counsel maintained that the ruling doesn’t apply to past events unless the apex court itself says so.

Later, the court reserved the verdict and will announce it tomorrow at 12:30 pm.

In a previous hearing, the high court had hinted at holding fresh election for the post of Punjab’s chief minister under April 16 circumstances, when incumbent Hamza Shahbaz was elected in a poll on a court order. 

Lahore: The Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has surpassed the upward revised target of Rs165.5 billion for the financial year 2021-22.

According to provisional collection figures up to June 28, 2022, the PRA collection stands at Rs168 billion, which is 108 per cent of the set target of Rs155.9 billion and 101.5pc of the revised target.

According to the PRA spokesperson, the authority expects substantial revenue in the last two days of the financial year and is hoping to end the year close to Rs170 billion.

It is worth mentioning that earlier this year, PRA became the first provincial revenue collecting agency in the country to cross the psychological barrier of Rs150 billion and the collection in June has further established it as the leading Provincial revenue collecting agency in the country.

This is the third successive year in which PRA has surpassed its revenue collection target. Earlier the Authority collected more than the assigned targets of Rs.105 billion and Rs.125 billion in the financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively. 

PRA spokesperson further elaborated that this success has been achieved without resorting to any coercive actions such as sealing of premises, attachment of bank accounts or collection of advance payments.

PRA has relied completely on collaboration with all stakeholders and emphasis on taxpayer facilitation and education. More than 200 awareness workshops were held during the financial year with more than 2,000 participants. 

PRA expects the growth trend to continue in the coming years as its management and all workforce is committed to continuing its focus on compliance without resorting to any measures that adversely affect ease of doing business.