KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Friday announced that it will maintain the cash margin requirements on the import of specific 177 items for another three months.

Earlier this year, in order to curb imports, the SBP decided to impose cash margin restrictions on several imported items. Accordingly, in April, the SBP advised banks to obtain a 100 percent cash margin on the import of some 177 items. As per the directives, cash margins deposited by importers on all specific items were non-remunerative to the cash margins and were till December 31, 2022.

As the deadline for the cash margin restriction was being expired on 31st Dec, the SBP has issued fresh directives and decided to continue the cash margin requirement for another three months.

It has been decided to extend the timeline for maintaining cash margin requirements on the import of specific items from December 31, 2022 to March 31, 2023. As per the directives, to ensure effective monitoring, banks are also required to submit details of cash margins, applicable on all items, collected from importers on a monthly basis. Data for the ongoing month should be reported to the Statistics & Data Ware House Department of SBP latest by the 10th of the following month.

SBP rolls back import restrictions from January 2, 2023

Power cranes, passengers lift, machinery finish paper/board, washing machine, dyeing machine, cellular mobile phone CKD/SKD, routers, parts of networking equip, memory cards, agriculture tractors, parts of locomotives, sewing machines, carding machines, combing machines, tulles and other net fabrics are included in the list of cash margin requirement.

Bankers said the SBP has taken this decision to reduce the pressure on exchange rate and control the volatility in the money market. As the market fundamentals are still not favorable, the SBP has decided to maintain the cash margin for another three months, they added. According to the SBP, all other instructions will, however, remain unchanged.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022