ARACHI: Pakistani currency continued to depreciate for the third consecutive working day on Tuesday as it reached Rs279.31 against the US dollar in the inter-bank market. According to State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) data, the rupee trimmed 0.02% of its value, or Rs0.05, against the greenback on a day-on-day basis. Market talk suggests that exporters were charging a higher premium on US dol
ISLAMABAD: Expenditures of the federal government shot up 50% to Rs7.5 trillion during the first seven months of the current fiscal year, a challenge that the political leadership is planning to tackle through a technocratic-bureaucratic setup in the finance ministry. As against expenses of Rs5 trillion during July-January of the last fiscal year, the federal government spent Rs7.53 trillion du
KARACHI: Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) President Iftikhar Ahmed Sheikh and Businessmen Group (BMG) Chairman Zubair Motiwala have urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to resume the unfinished negotiations initiated during the last few days of his previous tenure as the premier. They said though all the federal secretaries sent to KCCI had agreed on numerous remedial measures for
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on Tuesday, directed the hiring of a foreign consultant to modernise the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), indicating a departure from the previously approved restructuring plan. This decision emerged during the PM’s first comprehensive meeting on the administrative affairs of the FBR. The PM stressed the urgent need to engage international consultants and s
ISLAMABAD: The services’ exports in January contracted year-on-year for the third month during the current fiscal year, according to data compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The services exports fell to $677.96 million in January marking a 7.25 per cent decline from the $730.99m in the corresponding month last year. Contrary to this, merchandise exports reversed the trend and incr