Tag: state bank of pakistan

    The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has clarified that the reports which appeared in some sections of the press on July 23 regarding loans...

    The financial system of Pakistan remains in a sound and stable state at the end of calendar Year 2015, said the Financial Stability Review...

    The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), through a circular, ordered all branches of commercial banks to remain open on July 2 and 9 (Saturdays). “Commercial...

    Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affair Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar on Friday said that economic parameters have recorded significant improvement over the...

    Foreign debt of the country has soared by 75 per cent during the last 9 years which has raised Pakistan’s external debt to the...

  Standard Chartered Bank (Pakistan) Limited has announced profit before tax of Rs 4.9 billion in January-March 2016 with a growth of 15 percent. Administrative costs...

    The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has appointed Bank of Punjab (BOP) as it’s agent for collecting provincial receipts and taxes of the government...

  The State Bank of Pakistan may keep its policy rate unchanged in its first independent Board of Directors’ meeting next Saturday following the lower...

Central bank chief says foreign exchange reserves have crossed $20 billion level for the first time State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Ashraf Mahmood Wathra has termed it an opportune time to accelerate domestic investment in the country to take it to the next level of robust high growth. “In the context of historically low interest rates, marked improvement in security conditions and energy supplies, and launch of CPEC-related initiatives, this is an opportune time to invest in new projects,” the SBO governor said. The governor was addressing to a gathering of members of the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi, investors, brokerage house representatives and banks’ presidents after performing the traditional gong ceremony. Citing a recent analysis of non financial companies listed at the stock exchange, the governor revealed that overall, the corporate sector is fairly liquid and possesses a healthy surplus of investable funds. Referring to recent gains in economic performance, Governor Wathra said that Pakistan’s economy has shown marked recovery during the last two fiscal years, growing by over 4 per cent, after an anemic rate of 2.8 per cent on average in the preceding 5 years. Additionally, he said, macroeconomic stability has been the key feature of this recovery with budget deficits being contained without compromising on indispensable public spending; adequate level of foreign exchange buffers built which have crossed $20 billion level for the first time while inflation and inflationary expectations are less likely to resurge anytime soon. “What this tells us is that no major risks are in sight, which would undermine efforts in meeting our shared objective of achieving high growth; generating more jobs; and move further ahead on the development frontier,” the governor said. He termed the maturing of capital markets a welcome sign for the private sector.  Showing his optimism, the governor remarked, "With the advent of unified PSX, there is now a deep liquidity pool and a national platform for domestic savers and investors to take advantage of. For their part, corporate entities can benefit from enhanced access to savings, which can be channeled into new projects and developmental activities. In addition, the integration facilitates regulators in monitoring of market activity, and allows a greater degree of efficiency and transparency to be realised." Later a detailed presentation was given by SBP Chief Economic Adviser Dr Saeed Ahmed titled ‘Taking Economic Recovery to the Next Level: Role of the Private Sector’. Giving a detailed account of international perspective on the role of private sector and where the economy stands today, Dr Saeed’s presentation highlighted that it is now time to move from stabilisation to growth and that it is time for the private sector to lead economic recovery. According to the presentation, non-financial corporate sector data reveal gradual deleveraging since the year 2009, and marked improvement in liquidity condition. The most conservative estimate of net surplus with the corporate sector is Rs 446 billion (calculated as current assets net of current liabilities, without additional borrowing). It is noted that some entities have parked their liquidity in treasury bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds. This is disturbing as the corporate sector is looking to benefit from investing in risk-free government securities, instead of investing in real economic activities. The presentation also provided some estimates of the potential investable resources of the non-financial corporate sector, which, when deployed can increase investment in the country significantly and contribute to economic growth and job creation. The total investable resource, defined as twice the size of equity (based on assumption of debt-equity ratio of 2) with short term investments, cash and near cash and excluding the total liabilities, turns out to be over Rs 2.6 trillion. More than half of this potential lies in the energy sector alone. Some other major sectors include cement, textiles and autos. According to another definition of computing potential investable resources, which replaces total liabilities with total borrowings, the potential reaches over Rs 3.7 trillion while the major sectors remain the same. Earlier, Pakistan Stock Exchange Chairman Munir Kamal welcomed the SBP governor. "This is the first time in the history of stock exchange in the country that the governor of State Bank has been invited to the gong ceremony of the stock exchange," he remarked. He praised the overall improvement in the macroeconomic situation in the country and said that a joint effort by the central bank and stock exchange would definitely pave the way for accelerating investment and thus boosting economic growth in the country.

  Pakistan's central bank has cleared all commercial banks and financial institutions for business with Iran, paving the way for the two countries to resume...

  Pakistan will not be able to meet the GDP growth target of 5.5 per cent this year due to the decline in cotton exports,...

  Owing to the continuously declining inflation, there is a strong chance of further reduction in policy rates by 50 basis points to 5.5 per...

    The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) submitted its First Quarterly Report of 2015-16 titled ‘The State of Pakistan’s Economy’ to the Parliament on Monday....

    While it seems that all we do is hear about is new and upcoming power projects in the country, the annual report issued by...

  The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in its Annual Report on the State of the Economy for the year 2014-15 released on Friday...

Government needs to be more transparent about the details of energy and infrastructure deals worth $46 billion signed with China earlier this year, the...

  The State Bank of Pakistan Governor Ashraf Mahmood Wathra said on Monday that the Central Bank is striving to further strengthening the role of...