PESHAWAR: The business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has urged the government to slash interest rate in order to revive and boost economic, business and trade activities affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
This request was made by Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) President Sherbaz Bilour during a meeting with traders and industrialists at the chamber house on Wednesday.
The SCCI chief anticipated that the government is likely to increase interest rate up to 2 per cent and expressed worry of the impact such a move would have on the Covid-hit local economy.
He urged the government to maintain the policy rate at a single-digit level in order to save the businesses, saying that any increase in the interest rate would make local industries uncompetitive against other investors, which wasn’t in the best interest of the country’s economy and businesses that had already slowed down because of border closures and prolonged lockdowns.
Warning that industrialisation would go stagnant if no one obtains loans for business due to an increased interest rate, he emphasised that the policy rate should attract new investment into the country.
