News

The telecom crunch

The telecom sector in Pakistan is facing a wide range of taxation, pricing, and regulatory challenges impacting its growth, sustainability, and competitiveness. Some of these issues also extend into related sectors, such as solar infrastructure and local manufacturing, and together, they affect the broader business landscape in the country. One of the main challenges is the change in the Advanc

Changing the economic world order

If Trump has his way, the United States will lose its global influence, standards of living of Americans will decrease, including for those who supported him, and the world will not be safer, more secure or more prosperous.” This is the considered view of Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz as expressed in his latest book ‘Globalisation and its Discontents Revisited: Anti-globalisation in the Er

US tariff hammer to miss the nail

Last Friday, China raised tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent to match the import levies slammed by President Donald Trump on its exports as the world’s two largest economies took turns putting trade barriers against each other. But Beijing said it would ignore further levies by President Donald Trump because it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America, dismissing Trump’s m

Attracting pilgrims

Over 6,700 Sikhs arrived last week from India to take part in the Baisakhi Mela (festival) to be held on April 14 at Gurdwara Janam Asthan, Nankana Sahib. Some of the holiest sites for Sikhs are in Pakistan. In India, the Golden Temple has about 100,000 pilgrims daily. But that is not the only avenue of religious tourism. At $3.3m, religious tourism reached its highest level ever in FY24, the y

Finance: An era of uncertainty

The Asian Development Bank has projected a 2.5 per cent growth in Pakistan’s economy for the current fiscal year ending in June. Although the State Bank of Pakistan has retained its earlier forecast of 2.5pc to 3.5pc, the continued lag in domestic aggregate demand makes the lower end of the range appear more realistic. The sluggish pace of demand is evident from the tanking of consumer inflatio