The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the State Bank of Pakistan to immediately announce a cut of at least 2 percent in the mark-up rate which is too high as compared to the region in particular and developed world in general.
The LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh in a statement on Thursday said that the major economies of the world including China, India, European Union and America have recently slashed interest rates to revive their respective economies but in Pakistan the SBP's tight monetary policy continues to rule the roost against the wishes of the business doing people.
He said that the province of Punjab is especially in dire need of drastic cut in mark-up as it lost 2 to 2.5 per cent of its total GDP that is equivalent to Rs 250 billion during the last year due to electricity and gas shortages. He said that cut in mark-up rates would not only strengthen economic activities but would also go a long way in controlling stagflation that is giving birth to many other economy related problems besides jacking up the graph of unemployment and resultant surge in crimes. He said that cut in policy rate, therefore, is direly needed to jumpstart the economy which is at standstill and to revive the industry.
Sheikh said that a cut of 50 to 100 basis points would not be doing any service to the dwindling economy. He said that it was very unfortunate that we have failed to learn any lesson from the tighter monetary policy stance adopted by the State bank of Pakistan in the yester years.