KARACHI: The Pakistan Industrial & Traders Associations Front has urged the State Bank of Pakistan to drastically cut down the discount rate in forthcoming monetary policy, bringing it to a single digit, ensuring availability of cheaper money to cash-starved private sector, besides encouraging the potential foreign investors for investment in Pakistan. PIAF chairman Mian Nauman Kabir, in a joint statement along with senior vice chairman Nasir Hameed and vice chairman Javed Iqbal said that in the last monetary policy announcement the SBP kept the interest rate unchanged at 13.25 %, creating hardships in to access to finance for the business community as a whole and for SMEs in particular. 

He said that the cost of doing business and cost of production have shot up to the level of un-competitiveness. Under this, the cost of borrowing is huge and capital financing become more expensive. Mian Nauman Kabir said that the State Bank approach toward monetary policy had been rather conservative and is based on its own analysis of the situation.