Timely economic measures from govt, SBP ensured market stability: Reza Baqir

KARACHI: Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Dr. Reza Baqir on Wednesday addressed an interactive session with members of the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) and apprised them as to how government policies helped in the two-way movement of the exchange rate in the country for the first time, ARY NEWS reported.

Addressing the participants, the SBP governor said that it was due to the timely economic measures adopted by the incumbent government and the central bank that economic stability was brought in the country.

“We lowered the rate of interest drastically from 13.25 percent to seven percent,” Reza Baqir said.

He further said the government has adopted the process to digitalize the transactions and the companies could now check their affairs through an online portal.

At the end of the last month, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released an annual report highlighting that the central bank raked in a net profit of Rs1.163 trillion in the fiscal year 2019-20 as compared with the net loss of Rs1.043 billion recorded during the previous year.

In its Annual Performance Review for the fiscal year 2019-20, the central bank said: “The stability in the exchange rate allowed the SBP to return to profitability after incurring a loss in the preceding year. The profit so earned by the bank in the year ended June 30, 2020 is highest in its history.”

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It said the high-interest rate prevalent in the first three quarters of the year allowed the bank to accrue a significant amount of interest income from the interest-sensitive assets, particularly lending to the government and income from the bank’s open market operations.

Further, during the year, the liquidity mopping up operations were relatively on a reduced scale, and hence, the interest expense registered a substantial decline.

The SBP’s total assets were recorded at Rs12.273 trillion as of June 30, 2020, as compared with Rs11.467 trillion on June 30, 2019, showing an increase of Rs806 billion.