{"id":3415,"date":"2020-07-08T12:36:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T12:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onecitizendaily.com\/?p=3415"},"modified":"2020-07-08T12:39:45","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T12:39:45","slug":"bank-of-south-sudan-lowers-interest-rate-to-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/08\/bank-of-south-sudan-lowers-interest-rate-to-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank of South Sudan Lowers Interest Rate to 10%"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
South Sudan Central Bank Governor Gamal Abdala Wani, (R) giving press statement about Monetary Policy change on impacts of COVID-19 in Juba (photo by Ochaya Jackson)<\/strong><\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Ochaya Jackson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bank of\nSouth Sudan has lowered its interest rate from 13 percent to 10 percent in what\nit called the additional measures by the bank to mitigate negative impacts of\nCOVID-19 pandemic on the country economy. The change in the policy was availed\non Monday 6th<\/sup> July 2020 by the Bank\u2019s Governor, Gamal Abdalla Wani,\nduring press conference held at the Bank\u2019s Headquarters in the capital Juba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe downward\nrevision of the Central Bank Interest Rate (CBR) to 10 percent is meant to\nreduce the overall cost of financing extended to private sector by commercial\nbanks. Affordable loans will benefit business and South Sudanese citizens alike\nat this time of crisis. In addition, low CBR will also reduce the overall cost\nof finance at the domestic market. It will lower the cost of Certificates of\nTerm Deposits (CTD) and Reverse Repos issued by the central bank,\u201d the\nstatement reads in part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes as\nthe Bank of South Sudan\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee in an extraordinary meeting\non the 3rd<\/sup> July, agreed to consider processes to ease hostile effects\nof the COVID-19 disease on the country\u2019s financial systems, and banking sector\nspecifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to\nGamal Abdalla Wani, the measures introduced in March 2020, did not work that is\nwhy they are considering additional monetary policy actions to improve the\neconomy. And he argued that the measures are intended to provide greater\nsecurity to secure the financial systems, cushion commercial banks by availing\nadequate liquidity, to protect business enterprises [micro, small and medium\nenterprises] and members of society. He added that the measures are also\nintended to create favourable conditions for swift economic recovery, once the\npandemic comes to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides,\nthere are also monetary policy measures the central bank is considering, which\ninclude; reduction of Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) from 15% to 10%. It said its\nintention is relief extra liquidity to commercial banks and to support economic\nactivities [micro and small enterprise] hardest hit by the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suspension of\nMinimum paid Up Capital Regulation Amended 2020, which suspends Circular No.\nSDR\/S\/4\/2020 that directs all banks to raise their paid up capital to minimum\nof 5 billion South Sudanese pounds for a period of six months, it is said the\nmeasure is taken to protect the financial sector and prevent potential risk of\nbanking crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Sudanese\nPound as Legal Tender, should be accepted in payment of all public and private\ndebts in the country; pursuant to this, it said the bank issued number of circulars\nincluding the Banking Circular Number BSS\/3\/2015 dated 14th<\/sup> Dec,\n2015, instructing all government agencies, Financial Institutions, NGOs, Civil\nSocieties Organization and the general public, to use the SSP in all their\nfinancial transactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,\nrestructuring of loans in which it said the central bank anticipates customers\nwith huge amount of loans would face challenges in servicing their loans, thus\ncreating liquidity problems to the banks. It also said the banks are allowed to\nengage their customers and renegotiate terms especially those with outstanding\nloans facing temporary cash flow challenges arising from the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other\nhand, the Bank\u2019s Governor Gamal Abdalla, said the central bank of South Sudan\nshould be empowered to buy enough crude gold, and that President Salva Kiir has\nauthorized 4 million dollars to be released by the Ministry of Finance, and\nalso the Bank\u2019s Board has approved 1.5 million dollars all totalling to 5.5\nmillion dollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,\naccording to him, the gold is going to be bought in local currency in order to\nstrengthen the country\u2019s weak pound and it will give the government free hand borrow\nmoney from outside in which he said it will give the government leverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ochaya Jackson The Bank of South Sudan has lowered its interest rate from 13 percent to 10 percent in what it called the additional measures by the bank to mitigate negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the country economy. The change in the policy was availed on Monday 6th[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3417,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions\/3417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}