This rate will ensure Pak growth

target of six per cent.” The governments’ Federal Board of Revenue, the key tax collector, has been under strong criticism for properly doing its job in increasing tax collection, but the SBP reports that it rose in the first quarter of 201718 to 22.5 per cent compared to 4.5 per cent in the same period of 2016-17. “It is a welcome development,” the report says.

But sadly, challenges to the near-term balance of payments continue to persist. However, visible improvements in export growth, a notable increase in FDI, and the expected “other financial inflows will help contain these pressures”.

There is some good news for the credit-starved industrial, trade and exporter sectors: as the government is partly shifting its borrowing to meet its budgetary deficit from commercial banks to the SBP, hopefully commercial banks are likely to have larger amounts of credit to offer to the private sector.

Commercial bank credit to the private sector, year-on-year, rose by Rs814.9 billion in October. which shows a growth of 18.5 per cent, compared to Rs436 billion or 11 per cent in the same period of 2015-16. There was a small growth in fixed investment sector, which was already going up.

The SBP projects that “alongside the active liquidity management by the central bank keeping the overnight repo rate, close to the 5.75 per cent monetary policy rate, the SBP is supporting the availability of credi, to assist private-sector borrowing. This policy will continue.