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Pakistan auction signals rise in discount rate
Reuters - Thursday, November 6
By Sahar Ahmed
KARACHI, Nov 5 - Pakistan's central bank raised its three month treasury bill cut-off yield by 97 basis points to 13.5313 percent on Wednesday, which analysts said was an indication of an interest rate rise in coming days.
The cut-off yield on the 3-month Treasury bills was 12.5631 percent in an auction on Oct. 22.
The weighted average yield on the 3-month paper came at 12.9066 percent at Wednesday's auction, up from 12.5625 percent on Oct. 22, the State Bank of Pakistan said <SBPK12>.
"The rise in the T-bill yield clearly manifests a further tightening of monetary stance. We expect the central bank to increase its policy rate by at least 150 to 200 basis points," said Asif Qureshi, head of research at Invisor Securities Ltd.
Qureshi said monetary tightening may be a prerequisite for securing an International Monetary Fund programme.
Pakistan is facing a balance-of-payments crisis and has a few weeks to raise billions of dollars in foreign loans to meet debt payments and pay for imports.
The IMF and Pakistan are discussing terms and conditions of assistance but the government still hopes friendly governments such as Saudi Arabia will come to its financial rescue.
A government official told Reuters last week the IMF had said Pakistan would need to raise its benchmark discount rate, now at 13 percent, by 3.5 to 4.0 percentage points.
Pakistan had asked the IMF to agree to put off any interest rate increase at least until January, the official said.
"Cash-starved Pakistan is likely to embrace an IMF programme where it would be asked to raise the policy rate," said Muzzamil Aslam, economist at KASB Securities Ltd.
"We're eyeing a 150 basis points one-off rate hike, any time post today's auction."
Pakistan's top economic adviser Shaukat Tarin said last week interest rates would be raised if it was believed necessary to cut inflation, which is close to 25 percent.
Tarin also gave the example of Iceland which raised its interest rates by 6 percent after entering an IMF programme.
Foreign exchange reserves fell $400 million to $6.92 billion in the week to Oct. 25, out of which the central bank accounted for $3.71 billion -- less than September's import bill of $3.8 billion.
The rupee ended firmer at 80.90/81.10 to the dollar, compared with Tuesday's closing of 81.35/45. Dealers said there were no import payments and a few inflows.
Stocks ended flat at 9,183.14 points and dealers said investors were waiting for the removal of a floor that has been propping up the index since late August.
The floor that was placed on the index at 9,144 points after sharp falls. The index has fallen almost 35 percent this year.
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