Lasbela Chamber of Commerce and Industry's ( LCCI ) President Ismail Suttar has expressed his dismay over not changing discount rate in the monitory policy announced by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Saturday. In a statement issued here on Monday, the LCCI chief said that industry was expecting at least a cut of 100 basis points so that discount rate could be brought to a single digit, but the SBP remained unmoved.
He said that at a time when the industry was suffering because of energy crisis, keeping the interest rate unchanged was neither in the interest of the country nor in the interest of its dwindling economy. He said: "it was very unfortunate that they have failed to learn any lesson from the tighter monetary policy stance adopted by the SBP in the yester years."
Suttar regretted that the SBP governor despite all requests and SOS calls has avoided lowering the discount rate, leaving the entire business community to continue to suffer. He said that it was pity that when the entire world has been keeping interest rate at the lowest possible level, SBP is maintaining it at the highest level, causing hindrances for the revival of economy. He said despite higher inflation, all the major economies had either curtailed or are in the process of reducing high interest rates to protect their economies. The LCCI president said that the SBP should understand that its continuing tighter monitory policy stance was inflicting a heavy loss as the economy had already paid a very high price because of high interest rate.