Sameer Nazir
KARACHI: Business community has hailed the cut in key interest rate on Saturday by State Bank of Pakistan saying that it will provide a little breathing space to the industry. The President Lasbela Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Maqsood Ismail and former President, Yakoob H Karim said that SBP has taken a wise decision to slash 25 basis points to bring the policy rate to 5.75 percent from 6% prevailed from long time. They said in a statement that economy is in a state of uncertainty and needed some more breathing space to survive.
They said that banks in Pakistan are making huge profits for the last few years and a little cut in bank rate would not make any difference. They said that at this juncture the industrial sector is more suffering due to the immense increase in their cost of doing business.
“We have lost our significant share of export market in a number of countries as have become uncompetitive in many countries that were our traditional markets and now we have to recapture them if we given level playing field”, Yakoob said. They said that SBP’s Monetary Policy is heading in the right direction. They hoped that the Monetary Policy will continue as business friendly.