Bangladesh Bank (BB) is likely to announce its Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) for the second half of the ongoing fiscal 2024-25 (FY25) at the end of this month.
A senior official of the central bank confirmed this and said the MPS for the second half of the current fiscal is being formulated maintaining its 'contractionary' mood giving priority on inflation-combating.
The MPS will be the first monetary policy to be announced by Dr Ahsan H Mansur who became governor of Bangladesh Bank following the political changeover on August 5 last year.
For formulating the MPS, the central bank has invited all interested individuals and institutions to send their suggestions, opinions, and feedback regarding potential policy measures by January 15.
Besides, the Monetary Policy Department of Bangladesh Bank has started holding meetings with internal and external stakeholders as well as economists from today.
As part of it, the department will hold a discussion with the country's leading research organisations on January 14 on potential policy measures.
The organisations include the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh and South Asian Network on Economic Modelling.
The Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Research and Policy Integration for Development, reputed economists, bankers, businesspeople, and journalists will also attend the event to be held at Lakeshore Hotel in Gulshan in the city.
The central bank committee forming the monetary policy will ultimately summarise the observations from various quarters regarding its goals and format, including measures for regulating currency and lending rates, before finalising it on January 20.
Then the board of directors of Bangladesh Bank will approve the policy and set a date for announcing it for implementation.
Inflation in Bangladesh has been hovering above 9 percent since March 2023, with the central bank's existing contractionary monetary policy yet to cool consumer prices.
Bangladesh Bank has hiked the policy rate several times to 10 percent since then. The policy rate is the interest rate at which commercial banks borrow from the central bank.
But in December of the just concluded calendar year, inflation had eased slightly to 10.89 percent from 11.38 percent the previous month, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). On July 18, 2024, the central bank unveiled the last MPS for the first half of the current fiscal FY25. —BSS
