Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Thursday will announce its half-yearly monetary policy statement for the remaining six months of the current 2011-12 financial year.

BB Governor Dr Atiur Rahman will announce the policy at a press conference at the central bank’s headquarters in the capital city, official sources said.

Meanwhile, speculations have gone high among bankers, businessmen and share investors that the ensuing monetary policy would be more contractionary to slash unnecessary spending in both public and private sectors.

Earlier, economists and experts suggested the central bank to be more cautious in preparing the monetary policy as it would continuously be dealing with some challenging issues such as escalating inflation, depreciation of Taka and ensuring credit flow to productive sector against rising public borrowing.

They said the next monetary policy warrants some assertive steps by the BB to help the government keep inflation and borrowing within the budget limits of 6.7 percent and 5 percent respectively with achieving 7 percent economic growth.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 24th Jan 2012