Cenbank likely to unveil monetary policy for second half of FY25 by late January
The Monetary Policy Department of the central bank has started holding meetings with internal and external stakeholders as well as economists from today
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) is likely to announce the monetary policy 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.
It will be the first monetary policy to be announced by Dr Ahsan H Mansur who became governor of the Bangladesh Bank following the political changeover on 5 August last year.
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For formulating the monetary policy, the central bank has invited all interested individuals and institutions to send their suggestions, opinions, and feedback regarding potential policy measures by 15 January.
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 14 January 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 20 January.
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% since March 2023, with the central bank's existing contractionary monetary policy yet to cool consumer prices.
The Bangladesh Bank has hiked the policy rate several times to 10% 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% from 11.38% the previous month, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
On 18 July 2024, the central bank unveiled the last monetary policy for the first half of the current fiscal FY25.
