A majority of market participants expect no change in the policy rate, in the upcoming State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Monetary Policy Statement (MPS).

As per a poll conducted by Topline Securities, of financial market participants over the news on the upcoming monetary policy statement on March 19, 2021.

A total of 118 participants took part in the latest poll compared to 94 in January 2021, which was conducted for January 2021 MPS. Of the 118 participants, 82 percent expect no change in the policy rate in the upcoming MPS, as compared to the previous poll where 75pc of the participants were expecting no change.

The SBP’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is scheduled to meet on March 19 to decide about the monetary policy. Later on, the SBP will issue the MPS to announce the decision of the committee for the key policy rate.

On the other hand, 18pc of the participants are expecting an increase in the policy rate, under which 11pc are expecting an increase of 25 bps and 4pc are expecting an increase of 50bps.

“We are also expecting no change in the policy rate in the March 2021 MPS while we expect an increase in the policy rate by 100bps in 2021,” stated the report.

It is pertinent to mention that the MPC maintained the policy rate at 7 percent while announcing the previous monetary policy in January, and hinted that monetary policy settings will remain unchanged in the near term.