IMF conditionalities will push policy rate even further: Senior Economist

LAHORE: Renowned economist Faiz Ul Haq has said that International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities will push policy rate even further – and, the same has nothing to do with the real-world implication of interest rate hikes vis-a-vis Pakistan.
Faiz Ul Haq added that in a country where only 7 percent of its business community takes loans from banking channels, raising interest rates is no more than a fallacy. We have come a long way on a burgeoning path of 7 percent to 16 percent policy rate progression over the course of the last one and a half years; however, we have only witnessed a persistent and no-end-in-sight increase in headline inflation and other indices, he added.
Senior Economist Faiz Ul Haq said that we are living in an almost quarter a century’s highest policy rate regime in the country despite witnessing one of the most devastating floods in recent human history – not only in Pakistan.-PNP