KARACHI:
The State Bank of Pakistan slashed on Saturday the interest rate by 50 basis points to eight per cent.
It cited a number of positive economic indicators to justify the third consecutive policy rate cut since November last year.
In its bi-monthly monetary policy statement, the central bank said: “Increasing numbers of economic indicators in the current fiscal year have moved in a favourable direction. Headline CPI inflation continues to follow a downward trajectory and is expected to be well below the annual target of 8 per cent.”
The latest SBP projection range is 4-5pc for average CPI inflation in 2014-15.
As per the recent trend, the fall in inflation was broad-based with food and non-food inflations receding, both the measures of core inflation, non-food non-energy and trim-mean, were also recording decline, the bank said.
