DHAKA, Dec 25: Bangladesh Bank (BB) will adopt a more flexible monetary policy next year to cope up with the increasing inflation, food prices and boost rural resources in both farm and non-farm sectors. The new monetary policy, scheduled for mid-January, will put the target for taming inflation, accelerating inclusive growth, reducing poverty and bringing a holistic change in the rural economy, BB Governor Dr Atiur Rahman said on Saturday.
Rahman was addressing a programme of Southeast Bank in the city to distribute scholarships among meritorious students under the CSR (corporate social responsibility) scheme of the bank.
Speaking about the ensuing monetary policy, he said the policy would be more flexible to accelerate inclusive growth, faster poverty reduction and spur rural economy.
The BB is now also pursuing a flexible monetary policy while it is moderately regulating the rate of interest, money supply and banks’ involvement in non-core financial sector.
The central bank during this outgoing year capped interest rate to boost lending to industries, agriculture and other productive sectors when it discouraged banks to finance non- productive areas like real-estate and stock market.
Rahman did not detail the next policy, but made it clear that the central bank would give more attention to bring a holistic change in the rural economy, meaning rural farm and non- farm sectors would get more and cheaper loans.
The central bank in its current monetary policy has focused on inclusion of the people who have not getting institutional services for a long time.
The initiatives include offering farmers bank account for Taka 10, disbursing loan to sharecroppers and introducing mobile banking.
The governor said the new policy would focus on how banks can brought more rural people under institutional financial services.
A BB official said the governor is meeting the country’s leading economists tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the monetary policy.
The governor already held similar meeting with former governors, business leaders and bankers to make the monetary policy more conducive to domestic economy, the official said.     BSS

Source: The Independent