The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the State Bank of Pakistan to bring down the discount rate to give a jumpstart to the economic activities.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, LCCI Acting President Mian Tariq Misbah said that the SBP had to make a drastic cut at least by 250 to 300 basis points in discount rate in the next monitory policy to ensure cheap financing for industrial sector.
The LCCI acting president said that a cut of 50 to 100 basis points would not be doing any service to the dwindling economy. He said it was very unfortunate that they had failed to learn any lesson from the tighter monetary policy stance adopted by the State bank of Pakistan in the yester years.
He said that economic managers should understand well that a 50 to 100 basis points cut will be too little.
Mian Tariq Misbah said it was now before all of us that high discount rate was no more sustainable. It has been causing a great harm to economy and would continue to do so unless and until a realist approach was adopted.
He said despite higher inflation all the major economies had either curtailed or are in the process of reducing high interest rates to protect their economies.
The LCCI acting president said that the State Bank of Pakistan should understand that its continued tighter stance was inflicting a very heavy loss as the economy had already paid a very high price because of high interest rate. He urged the State Bank of Pakistan to announce at least 250 to 300 basis points cut in mark up rates that would certainly give jumpstart to the economic activities in the country. He said the present regime was making out its best efforts for economic revival of the country and cut in discount rate would be a bigger relief to the manufacturing sector.
