BB to announce MPS on Jan 27: Expansionary monetary policy on cards

January 21, 2014

BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Bank (BB) is set to announce its Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) for the second half (H2) of the current 2013-14 (FY14) financial year on January 27, a BB official said.
One of the major focuses of the new MPS would be expansion of the private sector credit, but with a balanced policy approach, economic adviser of the central bank Dr Md Akhtaruzzaman told BSS earlier.
He said considering the trend of the economy and the political situation, the central bank is preparing its MPS for January-June 2014 period, which is expected to help increase credit flow to private sector with effective move to accelerate economic growth and maintain inflation.
The MPS for July-December 2013 cut the private sector credit growth to 15.5 percent till December 2013 and 16.5 percent till June 2014 from 18.5 percent of January-June of 2013 only to arrest soaring inflation during this period.
Trade-bodies argued the lowered credit growth claiming that it would hamper necessary investment, required to achieve GDP growth.
The central bank, however, in its MPS insisted that the space for private sector credit growth had been kept well in line with economic growth target, which was also higher than the average of ’emerging’ Asian economies.
The current MPS also aims at helping bringing down the inflation to the fiscal target of 7.0 percent by next June. The data from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistic (BBS) shows the BB’s policy stance effectively brought down the inflation to 7.15 at the end of November.
The inflation, however, rose to 7.35 percent in December as food prices increased due to opposition’s repeated strike and blockade. The challenge for the central bank would be keeping the inflation under control while credit flow should be unhindered to help trade and business recover the losses caused by political unrest.
The central bank already completed discussions with economists, formers governors, bankers, business leaders and other stakeholders to make the MPS more effective to address the current and ensuing challenges including inflation, credit growth, exchange rates and capital flow to productive sectors.