MULTAN City News

MCCI lauds policy rate
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) has welcomed the maintaining its policy rate of 6.5 per cent for the next two months and expressed hope that the policy rate would be at 6 per cent if the federal government stopped to borrow from the scheduled banks at a rate closer to the SBP’s corridor ceiling of 7 per cent than the SBP’s target rate of 6.5 per cent.
In a statement on Monday, MCCI President Mian Iqbal Hassan said the government should attract the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to avoid borrowing from international financial institutions with harsh conditions and Pakistan should pay its proper attention towards exports to activate its commercial attaches and consular serving in different countries.
“Improvements in macroeconomic indicators helped the SBP to continue with its accommodative monetary policy and slash the policy rate by a cumulative 300 bps in Financial Year 2015. In addition to this, narrowing of fiscal deficit and continuation of Extended Fund Facility (EFF) would improve the market sentiments. These developments may lead to an upgrade of Pakistan’s sovereign ratings by international rating agencies in recent months,” the statement maintained. Macroeconomic stability thus achieved should reflect positively on real economic activity going forward. Iqbal said Iran is our neighbouring country and both the countries are linked with each other, saying that Pakistan can also take benefit of lifting of the US restrictions on Iran.