Monetary policy remains unchanged at 7pc

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan has Friday announced in the bi-monthly monetary policy committee meeting it has maintained the policy rates at 7 per cent, ARY News reported.

The monetary policy committee of the SBP sat today to roll out its interest rates for the two months wherein it decided to keep it unchanged.

The MPC said in its statement that since the last meeting in November, the domestic recovery has gained some further traction.

“Most economic activity data and indicators of consumer and business sentiment have shown continued improvement.”

The meeting concluded that while utility tariff increases may cause an uptick in inflation, this is likely to be transient given excess capacity in the economy and well-anchored inflation expectations.

As a result, inflation is still expected to fall within the previously announced range of 7-9 percent for FY21 and trend toward the 5-7 percent target range over the medium-term, the SBP said in its statement.