Governor State Bank unveils steps to offset impact of COVID - 19 upon Pakistani economy
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Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Governor State Bank Dr. Reza Baqir has said that inflation is threatening but is likely to remain within the target.
He said the economic growth in the country has boosted and the confidence of the business community has strengthened.
“The government also took some serious decisions regarding the country’s economy after it was disturbed by the coronavirus pandemic,” said the Governor State Bank. Talking about the last Monetary Policy, Baqir the economy has been improving since June’s Monetary Policy and the economic situation looks a bit better than before.
He said the Monetary Policy has also seen a slight increase in the inflation rate, and the rate is expected to stay between 7% to 9% this year.
According to him, the country’s economy is slowly recovering, and the federal government’s package for the Corona pandemic is 1580 billion rupees which is 3.8% of the GDP.
“Before the corona pandemic, interest rates were 13.25%, In two and a half months, interest rates have been cut by 6.25%,” announced Baqir, adding that late repayment from banks was facilitated.
He further said that delays in repaying loans to banks in the wake of the Corona pandemic have benefited business and home borrowers for Rs 640 billion a year. However, according to him, Rs 184 billion was not repaid from the rescheduled mugs of loans taken from the banks.
He said that loans of Rs 207 billion were provided for the non-employment scheme. According to him, there was a lot of focus on small businesses and the employment scheme provided loans to 50% of small scale industries.
Giving further details, the State Bank Governor stated that cheap loans to hospitals were introduced in the month of March, and Rs 69 billion were given to hospitals. “In total, Rs 1580 billion was released for the prevention of corona pandemic,” he stated.
