Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The central bank of Bangladesh is going to announce a capital market friendly monetary policy on July 26 instead of July 27, officials said.
“We’ll announce our next monetary policy that will be a capital market friendly on July 26,” SK Sur Chowdhury, deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) disclosed this while speaking at a press briefing after a bankers’ meeting on Monday.
He also said the banks have been asked to bring down their overall capital-market investment within 25 per cent of total capital through time-bound business plans by July 21, 2016.
The central bank now decided to announce its first half-yearly monetary policy on July 26 instead of July 27 earlier following the upcoming Eid vacation, another BB official explained.
BB Governor Atiur Rahman will announce the half-yearly (July-December) monetary policy statement (MPS) on the day aiming to gear up the country’s overall economic activities through boosting private investment from both local and foreign.
The central banker also hinted that the private sector credit growth target may increase slightly in the next MPS.
The BB earlier fixed the private sector credit growth target at 16.5 per cent for the second half-yearly MPS of the fiscal year (FY) 2013-14.
“The BB wants to contain inflation and helping the productive sectors for achieving maximum economic growth through employment generation across the country,” the central banker noted.
He also said the central bank is extending its policy supports aiming to bring dynamism in the country’s overall economic activities through increasing investment particularly in the private sector.
The country's inflation as measured by consumers' price index (CPI) eased slightly in the month of June last on both the annual average and point-to-point basis mainly because of declining prices of food items.
The inflation rate came down to 7.35 per cent in June 2014 from 7.44 per cent of the previous month on the annual average basis, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data.
On the other hand, the point-to-point inflation rate felt to 6.97 per cent in June last from 7.48 per cent of the previous month.
BBN/SSR/AD-21July14-6:20 pm (BST)