Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Wednesday that there was room for lowering the monetary policy rate by the end of this year.

After slashing the interest rate by 1,000bps from 22 per cent since June 2024 in seven intervals, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has maintained it at 11pc since May. However, the business community has expressed its intense disappointment over the decision.

Addressing an event in Islamabad today, Aurangzeb said: “The monetary policy rate and the market-based exchange rate are very much the purview of the State Bank of Pakistan and the Monetary Policy Committee.

“Having said that, in my personal opinion, I do think there is room to do more in terms of policy rate, and I am very hopeful that during the course of this calendar year, we will see movement on the policy rate going south,” the minister added.

He noted that “whether it was average inflation or core inflation”, there was space for the SBP to lower the rate.

“National security and economic stability are correlated,” Aurangzeb further said.

“In the past 1.5 years, we have made strong progress on the economic front,” he noted, listing: “Increase in the country’s economy and per capita income, stability in the economic sector, record decrease in financial deficit and inflation, improvement in current account surplus and external account, record increase in foreign exchange reserves and remittances.”

He summed up the country’s current economic status: “On the financing costs, we have moved in the right........

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