SBP releases FY27 calendar for Monetary Policy Committee meetings

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday issued an advance schedule for Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meetings for fiscal year 2026-27, announcing a set of steps it said were aimed at improving transparency, predictability and communication around monetary policy.

In a statement, the central bank said the advance calendar had been released as part of its ongoing effort to make the monetary policy process more transparent and predictable, while also strengthening communication related to policy decisions. The SBP said the detailed FY27 MPC calendar is available on its official website.

The central bank also announced that post-MPC press conferences will now be held four times a year instead of two. According to the SBP, Governor-led press conferences will take place after the MPC meetings scheduled for July, October, January and April.

Another change announced by the SBP relates to material prepared for analysts after MPC decisions. The bank said it will publish the staff presentation used for the post-MPC analyst briefing, and that the presentation will be uploaded to the SBP website one day after the relevant MPC meeting.

The SBP said this step is intended to provide greater clarity on the MPC’s reaction function and to strengthen stakeholders’ confidence in what it described as a thorough, data-driven process for monetary policy formulation.

The central bank further said it has decided to streamline the release of MPC meeting minutes. Under the new arrangement, the minutes will be published on the SBP website by the end of the fourth week following the corresponding MPC meeting.

Explaining the broader rationale for the measures, the SBP said the changes are aligned with its longer-term institutional planning.

“The continuous improvements in the SBP’s monetary policy-related communications are guided by the SBP’s Strategic Plan — Vision 2028 — which aims to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission by anchoring inflation expectations and facilitate the formal adoption of an inflation-targeting regime,” the SBP statement said.

The bank said all of the measures announced on Monday have been incorporated into the newly released advance calendar for MPC meetings for FY27.