THE provinces have become the favourite punching bag of Islamabad, donors and commentators. They are being chastised for failing to generate adequate resources to fund their constitutional responsibilities and provide social and economic services, such as law and order, education, health, water and sanitation, etc. This article examines the fairness of this censure, without getting into the merits
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday said that Pakistan needed to embark on a “long and difficult journey” to prevent knocking on the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again. “If we want to get rid of loans, we need to consider this IMF programme as the final one,” he said. In the wee hours of Saturday, the international lender announced that Pakistan and the Fund had reach
To facilitate the business community, all shipping companies will remain operational every Saturday from July 20 for one month to issue Delivery Orders (DO). This was decided in a meeting with businessmen, chaired by Karachi Port Trust (KPT) chairman Syed Syedain Raza Zaidi, in pursuance of the prime minister’s recent decision to establish a regulatory authority for the shipping sector. The
Turkiye plans to draw on its geographical position an European Union (EU) customs deal to entice Chinese investors keen to access European markets tariff-free, as it recently just did with Chinse carmaker BYD. The Chinese electric vehicle giant signed a billion-dollar deal with Ankara on Monday to open a plant in west Turkiye, promising to create 5,000 jobs, a move that will help it dodge new E
As Pakistan has reached a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) for $7 billion Extended Fund Facility with the IMF, the Pakistan Business Council (PBC) said the government should now take the formal sector into confidence by offering a roadmap on how and when their taxation burden will be alleviated. The body said the government should provide relief by cutting back on public expenditure and broadening t