karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Muhammad Haroon Agar on Saturday expressed dissatisfaction over Friday’s increase of 50 basis points in discount rate by the State Bank of Pakistan.
Agar said the business community was expecting a further decrease of 50 or 100 basis points in discount rate. He said further increase of 50 basis points would not be fruitful to control inflation as the government was in practice to control inflation while enhancing discount rate.
The KCCI chief said: “We firmly believe and it is our demand to drastically cut-down the discount rate to the level of 6 to 7 percent enabling the business community for level playing field with the competitors in the region.”
The deteriorating law and order situation, energy crises and exorbitant increase in the POL prices has already slowed the pace of industrial and commercial activities as well as the economy while the high discount rates has also brought an upshot and increase in the cost of doing business.
The tightened monetary policy has also impeded the progress of private sector with adverse effects on the economy.
Due to increased discount rates, the non-performing loans of banks are also increasing, therefore, the state of affairs demand government to take notice of the facts before taking decisions.
He opined that cut down of discount rate to the level of 6 to 7 percent would enhance the economic and commercial activities and would also be a ray of hope motivating the abroad shifted industrial units to come back to Pakistan and also to increase the domestic and foreign investment.
