News

After defaults, liquidity shortages emerge as key challenge

The punishing post-Covid wave of sovereign defaults has finally crested, with the likes of Ghana, Sri Lanka and Zambia concluding years of painful debt reworks. But the International Monetary Fund and others worry that a dangerous liquidity shortfall could take its place in many emerging economies — setting back development, stunting climate change mitigation and fuelling distrust in government

FDI jumps 48pc with lion’s share from China

Foreign direct investment (FDI) surged by over 48 per cent in the first quarter of FY25, reflecting improvement in investor confidence However, the inflows were dominated by China as it accounted for 52pc of the total FDI the country received in the July-September quarter. The State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) data issued on Monday showed the country received $771 million in FDI during July-Sep

Pakistani cities becoming ‘least livable’ with time: ADB

The Asian Deve­lopment Bank says the livability of cities in Pakistan is decreasing, and urban centres in the country are becoming increasingly inefficient, scoring low on multiple competitiveness indexes, with congestion, unattractiveness and pollution. In an urban development analysis incorporated in the “Pakistan National Urban Assessment Report”, launched on Monday, the ADB pointed out that

Stocks falter on political uncertainty

After scaling an all-time high a day earlier supported by a successful SCO summit, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday came under renewed selling pressure stemming from mounting political tensions in the backdrop of the proposed 26th constitutional amendment, pulling the KSE 100 index below 86,000 on aggressive foreign selling. Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks close

IMF misses the mark yet again

As per the Fund’s traditional approach, the programme is grounded in a basic accounting and meaningless framework that relies on a cash-based system to achieve a magical number for primary surplus (or deficit), all the while ignoring the structural problems of the country. At best, lip service is paid to reforms. Despite all the celebrations, let us not forget that we are in a low-investment, l