Demand for steeper cut in policy rate

KARACHI Former President of Employers Federation of Pakistan (EFP) Ismail Sattar has said that business community on the whole was expecting a much larger decrease in interest rate and just the one hundred basis points is too low in decrease.

The government should not forget the time when they started increasing the interest rate which was being done in leaps and bounds and now is the time since the inflation is very low, they should be reducing the interest rate in leaps and bounds.

The business, community on the whole and the industrial community in particular were expecting at least a 300 basis point decrease as the cost of doing business needs to come down for the local industries to remain competitive in the international market. It is up to the government if they are interested in increasing the exports and earning dollars through exports rather than getting loans from the IMF. They will have to act smartly and reduce the interest rate, not only to the single digit, but bring it down to 8% max.