Africa-Press – Zambia. Social Economist and Marketer Kelvin Chisanga says the Bank of Zambia‘s recent decision to maintain the monetary policy rate at 9% was inevitable. The Bank of Zambia recently kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged on expectations that inflation will continue slowing and to support a fragile economic recovery.
When announcing the decision, BOZ Governor Denny Kalyalya told a media briefing in Lusaka that the monetary policy committee held the rate at 9%. Speaking to Lusaka Times, Mr. Chisanga said raising the policy rate would have suffocated the credit market for businesses and lowered it. He, however, stated that BOZ’s decision will come with a cost to the private sector owing to high lending rates in the commercial banks sector.
“Fiscal energies, inflation developments made BOZ to stay course policy rate at 9.0%! The performance of interbank encircled to the policy rate with this positive change coupled with inflation movements which have both edged to this directional route. Zambia’s apex bank has maintained its course in the policy rate at 9.0% considering the patterns and implications that we are all seeing from inflation development, as the inflation has given a positive shape following a number of other key factors such as improvement in fiscal policy. Raising the Policy rate would have meant that the bank would have suffocated the credit market for businesses and lowering it would mean that it would be taking a different twist against bringing down the inflation towards the target range,” Mr. Chisanga observed.
“The policy decision however arises with no big surprise at all more especially at this point, as I predicted on the same through various local media, on the back of concerns raised by observing many macroeconomic factors placing it to stay the course on the November rate where it has been after hiking it by a 50 basis points in late 2021.It is imperative to state that headline inflation has continued to linger just slightly above the upper band of the medium-term target of 6 – 8% with expectations to see it hovering around the target horizon, it is also well recognizant to further state that the policy rate has shown some relatively positive signs of making “heavy marks” on the economic front with a very little impact counteracting against the growth seen in both population and economic growth,” he said.
Mr. Chisanga acknowledged that lending rates among commercial banks operating in the country have remained high. “It is well rewarding to say that average lending rates of commercial banks still remain high at more than pegged interest rate percentage, a situation that has twisted out a number of stories right into a blame-game among many stakeholders. In the private sector’s eyes, banks are just seen profiteering from their customers by smacking a serious toll on interest rates for bankable services and solutions such as loans, overdrafts, guarantee, etc. As the case may be, the banks always cry foul to stipulate on the blame that lending rates are high due to the policy rate band coupled with the risk factors associated with, especially going by lending out liquidity to the private sector,” he said.
Mr. Chisanga maintained that primary and secondary sectors of the economy must improve to improve the outlook of the local economy. “And to this end, we need primary and secondary sectors of the economy to give edge to this path of growth otherwise we have seen tertiary services performing very well though we can’t grow the local economy with this trend, so we need primary activities such as manufacturing thereby driving diversifications of export. As the policy measures take this direction, the decision of the MPC, though seem to be quite justifiable and fairly reasonable, will still come through with a cost to the private sector which has always remained a high card on the lending rates with the commercial banks in the country,” he said.
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