KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan Governor Ashraf Mahmood Wathra Monday said it is best time to accelerate domestic investment in the country to take it to the next level of robust high growth.
As a key note speaker at a media briefing on the economy of country, SBP Governor linked his assertion/theory to the historically low interest rates, marked improvement in security conditions and energy supplies, and launch of CPEC-related initiatives. A good number of members of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), investors, brokerage house representatives and banks’ presidents/CEOs were present. Earlier, the Governor performed the traditional gong ceremony that symbolises opening of trading at PSX.
SBP Governor, citing a recent analysis of non-financial companies listed at the stock exchange, revealed that overall the corporate sector is fairly liquid and possesses a healthy surplus of investable funds. He said Pakistan’s economy had shown remarkable recovery during the last two fiscal years, growing by over 4 percent, after low rate of 2.8 percent on average in the preceding five years. The macro-economic stability had been the key feature of this recovery with budget deficits being contained without compromising on indispensable public spending. The adequate level of foreign exchange buffers built up crossing dollars 20 billion for the first time, and inflation and inflationary expectations less likely to resurge anytime soon, he said.
“ What this tells us, is that no major risks are in sight, which would undermine efforts in meeting our shared objective of achieving high growth, generating more jobs and move further ahead on the development frontier,” the Governor said.
He termed the maturing of capital markets as a welcome sign for the private sector.
Showing his optimism, the Governor said that with the advent of unified PSX, now there was a deep liquidity pool and national platform for domestic savers and investors to take advantage of. For their part, corporate entities could benefit from enhanced access to savings, which can be channelled into new projects and developmental activities.
In addition, he said, the integration facilitates regulators in monitoring of market activity, and allows a greater degree of efficiency and transparency to be realized.
