Broad money growth expands to 9.62pc

KARACHI - Pakistans broad money growth (M2), a key economic indicator used to forecast inflation, has increased to 9.62 per cent in the first ten months of current fiscal year 2010-11, compared with a 8.07 per cent decline during the same period of last financial year, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Tuesday. A total amount of Rs556 billion was available as money stock in countrys economy during July-April FY11 against Rs415 billion in last year. Despite some reduction in the stocks of Net Domestic Assets (NDA) of the banking system, the improvement in banks net foreign assets (NFA) contributed to this growth during the period under review. The increase in NFA reflected some rebound in the countrys external accounts, while slowdown in NFA growth depicted a contraction in private sectors demand during July-April FY11. A provisional data on major monetary aggregates of broad money, posted by the SBP on its website, showed that from July 01, 2010 to April 30, 2011, the amount of money in circulation was stood at Rs196 billion against Rs130 billion in the corresponding period of last year. NFA of the banking system rose by to 154 billion from Rs32 billion whereas the stock of NDA including governments borrowing for budgetary borrowing, credit to non-government sector and other items declined to Rs403 billion, registering 7.69 per cent growth during July April FY11. According to the monetary figures, other deposits with SBP and total demand and time deposits including residents foreign currency deposits amounted to Rs3.65 billion and Rs357 billion respectively in July-April FY11. These deposits excluded inter-bank deposits, deposits of the government and foreign constituents. Earlier, SBP another data revealed that the monthly growth rates of monetary aggregates recorded an increase in March 2011. Total money supply growth of all monetary components like narrow money (M1), broad money (M2) and M3 increased to Rs4.588 billion, Rs6.138 billion and Rs7.909 billion as of March 2011. These components included notes/coins in circulation, transferable/other deposits, securities other than shares, deposits held with NBFCs/Post Offices and savings with CDNS. The deposits held with Non-Bank Financial companies (NBFCs) and savings with National Schemes Outstanding Amounts under the instrument of CDNS stood at Rs1.671 billion. The deposits held by post Offices recorded at Rs100 billion in the month of March, the SBP statistics said. According to SBP, the statement of monetary aggregates (M3) which covers details on monetary sector is regularly compiled by the Statistics & DWH department of SBP on monthly basis. The need for enhancing coverage of monetary aggregates was identified in the Strategic Plan 2005.