PESHAWAR: The Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has resented the discontinuation of applications process by the commercial banks under Temporary Economic Refinance Facility of the State Bank.
Pakistan’s resurging trade deficit isn’t surprising given the nation’s heavy reliance on imports and the limited range of products it can sell to the world. This was expected to increase in the wake of new growth in import demand with the pick-up in economic activities and consumption. Few believed that the government and central bank could reduce the trade gap by holding down the import demand for a very long time to keep the pressure off the country’s current account.
The new trade data published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) shows that the February trade gap expanded by almost 24 per cent to $2.5 billion year-on-year, mainly owing to the rebounding imports and the falling exports, which luckily continued to grow by above $2bn for the fifth consecutive month. The gap, however, declined by about 5.9pc from January on a month-on-month basis.
The State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBPP) Temporary Economic Refinance Facility (TERF) will raise the investment-to-GDP ratio by almost one percent during the
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