The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Saturday announced a change in the monetary policy announcement schedule. According to its new schedule, the SBP will unveil Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) in the first half of September instead of August 2013. As per previous decision of the central board of directors of the SBP, MPS was due in the first week of this month, however it could not be announced due to unknown reasons and now the announcement has been shifted to the second week of September.

Bankers said that during the last one and half years, for the second time the SBP has changed the MPS schedule. Earlier, in January 2012, the central board of directors of the State Bank decided to reschedule its meetings on monetary policy from the last week of the alternate month to the first half of the following month in order to take into consideration the latest data on inflation released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS). After that decision, the monetary policy announcement was shifted to the first half of February, April, June, August, October & December.

According to the SBP, Yaseen Anwar the Governor, State Bank will unveil the next Monetary Policy Statement on September 13, 2013 through a press conference to be held at SBP. In addition, subsequently the Monetary Policy Statement will be announced during the first half of alternate months, ie, January, March, May, July, September and November.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2013