Govt asked to bring down interest rate

PESHAWAR: Head of the Businessmen Forum and former senator, Ilyas Ahmad Bilour, has described retaining the policy rate at 22 percent as unfair and detrimental for business, industrial and economic growth and demanded to bring it down to 12 percent.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, he recalled that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led government in its previous tenure had brought down the interest rate to a single digit. He asked: “How will the business community get loans from commercial banks at this highest interest rate?

Ilyas Bilour said it was quite difficult for the business community to repay loans to the banks with an interest rate of 25 percent. “The businessmen are already in trouble in the prevailing circumstances and getting loans from the commercial banks at a markup of 25 percent is not only difficult but completely impossible for them, “ he said.

The Businessman Forum leader said if the federal government asked the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to bring down the interest rate to 12 percent from the current 22 percent, that would accelerate the process of business, trade and industrialisation and stabilize the national economy as well. He maintained that prices would go down by making a drastic cut in the interest rate that would provide relief to the poor segments of society.