SIRAJGANJ: Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman said the next monetary policy would have a strategy of ensuring credit flow to productive sectors with an aim to tame up the inflation through increasing the supply of essential commodities as per the demand.

“We’ve asked all banks to increase credit flow to productive sectors to minimize inflationary pressures side by side with taking various steps to discourage import of luxurious goods and reduce credit to this sector,” said the BB governor while addressing two separate loan distribution programmes here Saturday.

On July 18, the central bank will announce its half-yearly monetary policy statement for the first six months of the financial year 2012-13 (FY13), he added.

Dr Atiur will announce the policy at a press conference at the central bank’s headquarters in the capital city at around 11 am, official sources said.

The BB will maintain its contractionary monetary policy for the next six months to bring the inflation down to the fiscal target of 7.5 percent from the current double-digit position, a BB official told BSS.

The policy would remain cautious so the credit flow to the private sector maintains its expansion with creating new job opportunity to propel GDP (gross domestic product) growth, which is targeted at 7.20 percent for the FY13.

According to BB, the credit flow to the private sector was 18.22 percent in April. Dr Akhtaruzzaman said the credit flow, which was in line with the neighbouring countries, indicated that the fear of decline in credit flow due to the “restrained” monetary policy proved unfounded.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 15th July 2012