SBP to announce new policy rate today

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is set to announce a new policy rate today (Monday), ARY News reported.

According to the details, the Monetary Policy Committee of the SBP is expected to reduce the policy rates by 2 to 3 pe rcent.

Currently, the profit rate stands at 15 per cent, indicating a cumulative decrease of 7 per cent since June.

Additionally, starting from October, the current account has recorded a surplus of 34.9 crore dollars, which has also been in surplus during August and September.

The SBP further noted that in November, remittances exceeded 3.9 billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Statistics has disclosed that the country’s inflation rate has reached 3.9 per cent.

Read also: SBP cuts policy rate by 250bps to 15pc

Earlier, the workers’ remittances increased by 33.6 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year as compared to the corresponding period of last year, according to latest data of SBP released on Monday.

The remittances reached to US$ 14.8 billion during July-November 2024-25 as against the remittances of US$ 11.1 billion received during July-November 2023-24.

On December 6, SBP witnessed a surge in the foreign exchange reserves with a reported increase of $620 million.

The State Bank of Pakistan in a statement said that “the total foreign reserves of Pakistan surged to US$16.62 billion supported by recent Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan transfer, while the SBP reserves crossed $12 billion as of November 29, 2024.”

According to the SBP, the total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank, increased by $620 million to $12,038.3 million after the official inflow of $500 million from ADB.