The State Bank of Pakistan has expanded its Economic Agents Network (EAN) to Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad, deploying dedicated teams to deepen engagement with key stakeholders across the economy and gather real-time insights on evolving economic conditions and policy matters.
Launched in May 2025, the EAN was created to strengthen the SBP’s dialogue with businesses and other economic actors. According to the central bank’s biannual Monetary Policy Report, the network is now being rolled out to additional regions to progressively broaden coverage and improve the quality of interaction nationwide.
The SBP noted that many central banks worldwide rely on structured outreach frameworks to connect with businesses, trade bodies, and other stakeholders. These systems provide timely, qualitative intelligence that complements official statistics and supports analysis of demand, pricing, labour markets, and sector-specific trends.
Through regular, structured engagements, primarily face-to-face interviews with senior executives, the EAN teams collect information on demand and supply dynamics, cost pressures, pricing behaviour, employment trends, financing conditions, and business expectations across manufacturing, agriculture, and services.
Findings from these engagements are consolidated and shared with the Monetary Policy Committee and are also used to refine macroeconomic projections. The network additionally consults research institutions, academia, public-sector bodies, and government entities to ensure the insights are robust and broadly aligned. All inputs are kept confidential and reported only in aggregated form to protect respondents and maintain data integrity.
The EAN also functions as an early warning mechanism, helping the SBP identify emerging risks, track shifts in expectations, and respond more quickly to fast-changing economic conditions. This role is especially critical during periods of heightened uncertainty, such as natural disasters, when developments may not yet be reflected in published data, including impacts from floods or trade disruptions like border closures.
As part of its forward-looking monetary policy framework, the SBP has institutionalised the use of qualitative intelligence alongside traditional data. The central bank said this expanded informational toolkit allows for a more nuanced assessment of underlying drivers and emerging dynamics that fixed-structure surveys, conducted periodically, may not fully capture.
