With the government scrambling for dollars, knocking one door after the other to raise cash to keep the ongoing balance of payment crisis from morphing into a sovereign default, not less than a billion dollars in ‘overdue export proceeds’ remain to be repatriated. The overdue export proceeds are those where an exporter is unable to repatriate their export revenues within 90-120 days from the da
Caretaker Commerce Minister Gohar Ejaz has said that exports will cross $100 billion in the next five years if the 10,000-acre new industrial zone in Karachi is materialised, which will also create three million new jobs. Addressing the business community at the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Saturday, Mr Gohar said the new industrial zone would be aligned w
Pakistan’s yearly consumer inflation rate stood at 29.7 per cent in December 2023, which means that those who earned Rs100,000 per month needed Rs 129,700 to maintain their lifestyle at a year-ago level. Obviously, most individuals and households had no opportunity to make the additional Rs29,700. Inflation numbers don’t tell us about their sufferings, let alone the sufferings of the jobless. W
Finance ministry also declines to share cost, citing IMF restrictions PM-led meeting decides to merge prices of imported and local urea, bill the extra cost to farmers ISLAMABAD: With the headline inflation already touching 30 per cent, the country braces for a fertiliser price hike of about 5pc as provinces refuse to share a Rs32 billion burden for imported urea. The Ministry of Finance
In a challenging, complex situation, one can see consensus-building surfacing on how to resolve major issues, both by design as well as by independent actions of various stakeholders/institutions that tend to work in harmony. A major issue on which near-consensus or consensus is so obvious is that elections should be held as scheduled on February 8. And that long-term policies can only be formu