The trade and industry on Sunday expressed concerns over the monetary policy, announced by the Governor State Bank of Pakistan on Saturday. President of Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) Mian Anis A Sheikh said that it was the need of the hour to reduce and gradually bring the interest rate down to single-digit but the SBP had maintained the 12 per cent bank rate without any justification.
He further said that interest rate was the highest in the world and the exports had become uncompetitive in international market due to massive overheads. The president of the MCCI termed the SBP's decision as anti-industry and anti-economy. He pointed out that even SBP governor himself admitted that the government could not achieve any monetary goal by increasing discount rate yet he had failed to realise that the highest rate prevailing in the country was resulting in a mass number of defaulters. He said that over several hundred cases of NPLs were pending before the courts and the number of defaulters feared to increase further.