MULTAN, Nov 28: State Bank of Pakistan Governor Shamshad Akhtar has said the impact of global oil and edible items’ price-hike should have been passed on to the consumers much earlier as delay in doing so dealt a blow to the national economy. And the delay was caused by a change of government.

Addressing the Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry members here on Friday, she said shortfall in major crops and rising prices of commodities in the international market hit hard the national economy. “We had no other option but to procure wheat and oil at rocketing prices.”

She dubbed the reports of banks going bankrupt as baseless, claiming that the banking sector in Pakistan is stable and rather profitable, with 45 banks currently operating in the country. She said there was a steep increase in loans advanced to the private sector by the banks as the total volume of these advance payments had touched Rs400 billion.

Previously the banks used to offer loans to large corporate organisations alone, she said, but now every one was being given loans. She said a comprehensive agenda for the growth of financial sector had been evolved and “we are currently concentrating on development finance as 16 field offices have been set up across the country for this purpose while the government has allowed opening up of eight new micro-finance banks that would initially benefit at least 1.6 million people. The number of beneficiaries will increase to three million.”

The SBP governor said the Trading Corporation of Pakistan had chalked out “procurement line of action” and the central bank was considering the problems and demands of cotton ginners and rice millers. She said the country had to pay $11.3 billion oil bill in the recent past, which proved a bane of economy.

Ms Shamshad Akhtar said the total volume of agriculture loans soared to Rs211 billion from Rs50 billion with a ratio of last year’s 30 per cent (annual) increase while the increasing ratio from July to November was 19 per cent.

She said the government had now widely acknowledged the inflationary impact of its sizeable borrowings from the central bank that reached undesirable levels close to Rs380 billion during July-Nov 17, 2008. She said there were visible signs that inflation in Pakistan was on a steady decline, adding that it would further come down within three months.

The SBP governor confirmed that Pakistan had got $3.059 billion as first tranche of the $7.6 billion IMF loan.