KARACHI: Faisal Moiz Khan, President of the North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry (NKATI), stated that the State Bank’s decision to maintain the interest rate at 11% goes against the promises repeatedly made by Prime Minister Mian Shehbaz Sharif to the business community, where he had assured that the interest rate would be brought down to single digits.
Faisal Moiz Khan said that global indicators were turning favourable for Pakistan, and in such circumstances, keeping the interest rate at 11% is inappropriate and a hurdle in the path of trade and industrial growth in the country. He added that by maintaining the current rate, investors and industrialists have been deeply disappointed.
He further stated that the failure to reduce the interest rate has created additional difficulties for the national economy. Faisal Moiz Khan pointed out that all regional countries have interest rates 5 to 6 percent lower than Pakistan’s current rate. If the State Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee had considered the regional business environment, a reduction in the rate could have had a positive impact on economic activity.
Newspakistan.tv
