Journalist refutes report about SBP governor’s absence in key conference call

KARACHI: Senior journalist and economist Ali Khizar has refuted the report of ‘Profit’ magazine editor Khurram Husain regarding the absence of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr Reza Baqir from a scheduled conference call with foreign investors and analysts after the monetary policy announcement.

Khurram Husain’s statement regarding the SBP governor’s absence from a key conference call turned out to be false as another journalist, Ali Khizar spotted and shared the screenshot of the conference call on Twitter in which Dr Reza Baqir was attending it.

Husain had written a Twitter message on December 14 that the SBP governor had skipped a scheduled conference call with foreign investors and analysts after being summoned to a meeting with the prime minister immediately after the monetary policy announcement.

While responding to Husain, Ali Khizar shared a screenshot of the conference call where Dr Reza Baqir was interacting with the participants. He then advised Khurram Husain, saying, ‘Don’t read too much in my humble opinion.

It is pertinent to mention here that the central bank had announced the new monetary policy, hiking the interest rate up to 1 per cent from 8.75 per cent to 9.75 per cent in the country.