{"id":6227,"date":"2025-05-05T12:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=6227"},"modified":"2025-05-05T12:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:04:14","slug":"sbp-lowers-interest-rate-to-11-with-100bps-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=6227","title":{"rendered":"SBP lowers interest rate to 11% with 100bps cut"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has lowered its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 11%. The decision, announced after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on Monday, will take effect from May 6, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>According to the MPC, the rate cut follows a sharp decline in inflation during March and April, driven largely by reduced administered electricity tariffs and easing food prices.<\/p>\n<p>Core inflation also fell in April, aided by a favourable base and moderate demand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This cut is higher than market expectations,&#8221; Mohammed Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities told a local media outlet adding that\u00a0analysts had mostly anticipated a 50bps reduction or a hold due to global uncertainties.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the improved inflation trajectory, the MPC acknowledged ongoing global risks, including uncertainty over trade tariffs and geopolitical tensions, and stressed the need to maintain a balanced monetary stance.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts had been divided ahead of the meeting. While Arif Habib Limited expected a 50bps cut citing disinflation and macro stability.<\/p>\n<p>Topline Securities and other economists had predicted no change, pointing to IMF conditionalities and unresolved foreign inflows.<\/p>\n<p>April&#8217;s inflation rate stood at 0.3% YoY, significantly lower than March\u2019s 0.7%, while Pakistan\u2019s current account posted a $1.2 billion surplus in March. SBP\u2019s forex reserves slightly increased to $10.21 billion as of April 25.<\/p>\n<p>The policy rate was previously held at 12% in the last MPC meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The rupee has since depreciated by 0.4%, while international oil prices and local petrol rates have edged downward.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has lowered its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 11%. The decision, announced after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on Monday, will take effect from May 6, 2025. According to the MPC, the rate cut follows a sharp decline in inflation during March and April, driven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}