SBP to announce monetary policy on Thursday  

Karachi: The Monetary Policy Committee of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) would make decision about the monetary policy on Thursday, a statement issued by the central bank said on Tuesday.

Later on, SBP would issue the Monetary Policy Statement through a press release on the same day.

The statement came after the coalition government had decided to increase the interest rate from the existing level of 17% to 19% under one of the major conditions put forth by the Fund to revive the loan program.

The analysts, however, believed that the SBP needed to bring forward the MPC meeting date as the ministry of finance could not afford failure in the next T-bill auction.

The Fund and the central bank had held a round of discussions about the possibility of further tightening of monetary policy and building up foreign exchange reserves by the end of June 2023.

The IMF had earlier asked the SBP for hiking the policy rate by 300 to 400 basis points in order to move towards the interest rate from a negative to a positive trajectory.