KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank is widely expected to hold its key interest rate at a record 22% for the sixth straight policy meeting on Monday as inflation risks continue to loom, but a majority of analysts expect rate cuts from the second quarter of this year. Monday’s policy decision would be the last ahead of the April expiry of a $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement with the International Mon
ISLAMABAD: Plastic bag manufacturers have blamed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for billions of rupees in annual tax evasion by major commodity producers due to malfunctioning production tracking systems. Industry players have sought the intervention of the new Finance Minister, Muhammad Aurangzeb, who is also advocating end-to-end digitisation of the tax system to eliminate leakages. Th
After two consecutive sessions of selling pressure, some positivity returned to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday after it gained more than 1,000 points in intraday trade. The KSE-100 index gained by 1,015.82 points, or 1.59 per cent, to close at 65,064.26 from the previous close of 64,048.44. Yousuf M. Farooq, director of research at Chase Securities, attributed the bullish mome
The finance ministry and a delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday kicked off the second and last review of Pakistan’s $3 billion standby arrangement with the body. The ministry had said a day ago the review would be a four-day affair and hoped for a for a successful IMF staff-level agreement after the appraisal, saying that “Pakistan has met all structural benchmarks, q
ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has introduced amendments to the Companies (Further Issue of Shares) Regulations 2020, simplifying the right issuance process with single, standardised disclosure and reporting requirements applicable for all right issues regardless of the issue size. Under the new amendments, the issuers will have to solicit comments from b