*Monetary policy for January-June period

*Policy to tighten money supply

* Macro-prudential steps to curb lending

* Private sector credit growth target 16.8%

Bangladesh Bank today announced its new monetary policy for January-June period with a target to tighten the money supply and curb excessive lending.

Accordingly, the central bank will take macro-prudential steps to curb imprudent and unproductive lending, including intensive surveillance on adherence to prescribed asset-liability management and rationalisation of banks’ advance or deposit ratios.

The policy has also encouraged banks to avoid unduly high, medium or long-term investment financing exposures to corporate borrowers.

The new policy has set private sector credit growth target at 16.8 percent against a previous projection of 16.3 percent. However, the target is significantly lower than the growth at over 18 percent in December 2017.

Repo and reverse repo policy interest rates will, for the time being, have left unchanged at 6.75 and 4.75 percent, respectively.