LAHORE: The businessmen welcomed the SBP’s decision of cutting interest rate by another 50 basis points, and said that the rate cut would help boost private sector growth.
However, All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF) President Ibrahim Qureshi said also complained that lending to private sector by the commercial banks during the last eight months has not picked up pace.
Qureshi said the State Bank governor deserved appreciation for bringing down the interest rate to 8 per cent from 9.5 per cent in short span. He also called for steps to fight energy crisis, security challenges and political instability to make interest rate cut meaningful and result-oriented.
Some seven years back in 2007, banks were providing 67 per cent credit to private sector which has fallen to just 37 per cent by 2014, he said. He added as per monetary policy statement January 2015, banks provided total credit of Rs 224.5 billion to private sector during the first half of financial year 2015 as compared to Rs 325.8 billion during the same period of last year which again shows banks’ declining supporting role to private sector.
