News

Sialkot leads Pakistani sellers on Alibaba.com

As many as 85 per cent of Pakistani sellers on Alibaba.com, one of the largest global platforms for business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, are based out of a single city: Sialkot. Speaking at a sellers’ summit organised by the international B2B platform on Thursday, Alibaba.com Pakistan Business Growth Manager Muhammad Sadiq said there’ve been 3.2 million listings from Pakistani sellers so far.

Oil, food imports rise to $5bn in July-August

Pakistan’s oil and eatables imports grew 11.4 per cent in the first two months of the current fiscal year to $5.08 billion from $4.56bn a year ago, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Thursday. In contrast, textile and clothing exports could only rise by 4.2pc year-on-year to $3.05bn due to slow demand and high cost of local production because of expensive energy. The oil import

Oil ticks up on correction, on track for weekly loss on recession fears

Oil prices edged higher on Friday but were on track for a weekly decline amid fears of sharp interest rate hikes that would slam global growth and hit fuel demand. Brent crude futures were up 24 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $91.08 a barrel as of 0315 GMT, but were down 1.9pc for the week so far. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained 10 cents, or 0.1pc, to $85.20 a barrel, but w

Dollar steadies ahead of Fed, yuan breaks key level

The dollar hovered near its recent peaks on Friday as expectations that the United States Federal Reserve would need to hike more to tame inflation sent Treasury yields higher and kept the greenback in demand. The towering dollar pushed the offshore yuan past the critical threshold of seven per dollar for the first time in more than two years overnight, with the yuan hitting a trough of 7.035 i

Stocks inch up in range-bound trading

Bulls fought bears on Wednesday in a range-bound session on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Arif Habib Ltd said the index traded within a narrow band due to the investors’ concerns about rising political noise and the continuous hammering of the rupee against the dollar. The benchmark moved sideways a volatile session, with decent main-board volumes. The national currency closed at 234.32 per d