News

Quest for a stable currency

The central banks of Pakistan and China have renewed their commitment to expanding their bilateral trade and investment in the Chinese yuan. For that purpose, they signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing yuan clearing arrangements during a recent visit of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to China. According to a senior banker, Yuan clearance enables Pakistan to access Chinese banks an

Struggling ML-1

Pakistan and China are planning to arrange bidding for $10 billion Mainline-1 — the 1,872km Railway Track along with associated facilities from Karachi to Peshawar — next month (December) and have agreed to have its foreign exchange component of $8.4bn fully financed through Renminbi (RMB) based Chinese loan. The bidding would be among the leading Chinese companies to be identified and recommen

Debt is costlier than we think

Would you believe that out of every 100 rupees the federal government spends each year, Rs52 goes on debt servicing? Sadly, this is true. During July-September 2022, the current expenses of the federal government totalled Rs1.832 trillion. Of this, Rs954 billion was used for domestic and foreign debt servicing, according to the quarterly fiscal review. Domestic debt servicing alone consumed Rs8

Stocks rally 636 points after AIIB okays $500m

Bulls reigned supreme on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Thursday following the announcement by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar about $500 million financing by Asian Infra­structure Investment Bank. According to Arif Habib Ltd, investors gained considerable confidence because of the promised fund under the Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Exp­en­diture initiative supported by Asian Dev

Interest-free economy

FINANCE MINISTER Ishaq Dar’s announcement that the ruling coalition would withdraw the legal challenge to the April judgement of the Federal Shariat Court that gave the government until the end of 2027 to eliminate interest-based banking must have come as a surprise. Mr Dar said the government wants to eliminate riba as soon as possible. He also said that both the State Bank and the state-contr