Yesterday, Dr Shamshad Akhtar announced few drastic steps by the State Bank of Pakistan to control the rising inflation and to right the monetary policy.  The SBP not only increased the interest rates by 1.5% (150 basis points) but also increased the Statutory Reserve Requirement (SLR’s) and Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR). All these steps shows the gravity of the situation and hence this was not supposed to go down well in the stock market as well as the Real Estate and Manufacturing sectors.

The statement causes ripples today in the Karachi Stock Market, where investors seems very disappointing and hence a selling spree started in the very first few minutes of the opening of the market. Till the writing of this blog, the market has stumbled down 550 points and is hovering around 13000 points. A lot of companies have touched their day low and hence been locked, which means no further trading can take place in their shares. Keeping in mind the political situation, the falling credit rating by Standard and Poor of the country and the growing threat of American interference in our tribal areas, the increasing oil rate and the depreciation of rupee to dollar parity, a serious economic crises is around the corner. The poor are already finding it hard to cope up with the inflation and the rising cost of food and energy will take them to the edge.

Situations like these put an extra pressure on the law and order situation in the country which is evident from the fact that people are now taking the law in their hands and serving speedy justice to the robbers. The incident of Karachi is well known to everyone. I hope that our government pays urgent attention to it and give some much needed relief to the masses.

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