National interest not capital market top priority

KARACHI - Governor State bank of Pakistan, Dr Shamshad Akhtar Monday declared that her top priority was taking care of the interest of the country and not that of capital market or banks.
She stated this during her visit to KSE where she was invited by the KSE management to address a meeting of the Board of Directors of the KSE, senior stock brokers and heads of commercial, investment banks. This was her first visit to KSE since assumption of office in 2006. The meeting facilitated a constructive dialogue on the current economic situation and the future prospects of the stock market.
The KSE had specially invited the governor to plead their case of setting up of the equity fund that would help stock market to counter current crisis and to request her that any further hike in the discount rates would have negative impact on business activities.
According to inside sources who attended two and half hours long meeting, the governor gave her full attentions to the suggestions put forth by her hosts but in the end she poured cold water on the high expectations of the financial managers when she told them her top priority was to look after the national interest rather than those of the capital market and the banks.
The sources said when the members of the KSE explained their case of setting up the Equity Market Fund and told her that even in developed countries suck funds were created from time to time to haul the market up from the crisis and their central banks participated in such kind of funds, she said she did not know about what centrals banks of other countries do and said there was no clause in SBP rules for participating in such a fund.