The Board of Directors of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Saturday kept the policy rate or discount rate unchanged at 6 percent for the next three months.
According to the SBP’s policy statement, the decision of keeping the policy rate unchanged has been taken due to the country’s controlled inflation at 6 percent on year on year because of low international oil prices, but it says the inflation is expected to go up again.
It said the average Jul-Oct 2015-16 inflation at 1.7 percent is lower than the 7.1 percent average inflation in the corresponding period of last year. The decline is broad-based as both food and non-food and core inflation measures came down in this period. Going forward with subdued outlook of international oil price and other major commodity prices, and in the absence of any shock to supplies of food items, even though the average inflation would remain below the FY16 annual target of 6 percent, the headline inflation is expected to reverse its declining momentum. Moreover, market surveys indicate a marginal increase in inflation expectations for the coming months.
It further said that current account deficit, despite a year on year 10.6 percent contraction in exports, has narrowed down to $532 million in Jul-Oct 2015-16 from $1.9 billion in Jul-Oct 2014-15. The improvement largely owes to declining oil price which has substantially reduced the oil import payments, healthy workers’ remittances, and the realisation of coalition support fund.
At the back of official disbursements and Eurobond inflows, surplus in capital and financial account has supported the overall balance of payments position thus ensuring an upward trajectory in foreign exchange reserves in Jul-Oct FY16. Going forward, the continued flow of external resources would be required to maintain the stable balance of payments position. Furthermore, realisation of investment inflows stemming from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would indeed strengthen the external sector outlook over the medium- to long-term.
The policy statement said that large-scale manufacturing (LSM), mainly supported by food and beverages, automobiles, fertilizers, and cement production, increased to 3.9 percent in Jul-Sep 2015 compared to 2.6 percent in the same period of last year. Further boost to this growth is expected from expansion in cotton yarn manufacturing, strong construction activities as per planned development spending, increased automobile production encouraged by government schemes, and improving energy supply at the back of recent LNG imports.
Credit to private sector witnessed a nominal increase in July-October 2015 wherein fixed investments continued to expand for the fourth consecutive quarter – from second quarter 2014-15 to Q1-2015-16. As a result of easy monetary policy, the weighted average lending rates on fresh and outstanding loans, at 7.8 percent and 9.2 percent in September 2015, are the lowest in 10 years. Thus, with current credit cycle now entering in uptake phase and with improving LSM growth, borrowing on account of both the working capital and fixed investment is likely to increase. This outlook would reflect in broad money (M2) growth going forward, which during July 01-November 06 2015 M2 has expanded by 0.2 percent against 0.7 percent during the same period last year. While the net domestic assets declined by Rs78 billion, net foreign assets contribution in M2 growth remained substantial as it increased by Rs 106 billion, it added.
