Category: Business

ISLAMABAD: The Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa gove­rnment is falling behind in the implementation of the Khyber Pass Economic Corridor Project, for which the World Bank approved a loan of $460.6 million almost a year ago. A recently released rep­o­­rt on the project states, “the project is pending effective­ness as the government’s internal approval was underway, and expected […]

LONDON: A case in a London court to extradite Arif Naqvi, the founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj, to the United States on fraud charges, was adjourned until April 26, a court official said on Thursday. The official told Reuters that a former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, had also been arrested […]

KARACHI: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Textile, Indus­tries and Production, Abdul Razak Dawood on Thursday asked the industrial community to best prepare themselves to reap the fruit of signing of the second phase of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China. Speaking at an interactive session with exporters and industrialists, he said negotiations on […]

ISLAMABAD: The country’s major opposition parties on Thursday termed resignation of Finance Minister Asad Umar an undeniable admission of the failure of the government’s economic policies by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has even called for the resignation of the prime minister for “plunging” the country into a severe […]

KARACHI: Reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) plunged by $1.028 billion to $9.244bn during the week ended on April 12. The decrease in dollar stock came amid external debt servicing, including principal repayment of $1bn against Pakistan Sovereign Bond, said a press release from SBP. Meanwhile, holdings of the commercial banks stood […]

Nestle Pakistan has cut eight percent of its workforce since the start of last year as it has been struggling with a patch of the slowest sales growth in 18 years, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Head of Corporate Affairs Waqar Ahmad Sheikh told Bloomberg that the Pakistan-listed company — 59 per cent of which is owned by the Swiss food […]

PTI stalwart Asad Umar — an hour after announcing that he is stepping down as finance minister on Thursday — told a press conference that it was time to make some “difficult decisions” to stabilise the economy and that he hopes his replacement would be supported in their efforts. Umar, via Twitter, announced earlier that […]

Teams from the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Islamabad Circle on Thursday raided two offices operated by currency exchange companies in Islamabad’s F-10 Markaz and Blue Area as part of a wider crackdown against dollar hoarding and money laundering. The teams seized records, foreign currency and millions of rupees in cash from the two outlets as […]

ISLAMABAD / LAHORE: The country’s economy, already walking a tightrope, faces a grim scenario as the government is unlikely to achieve the wheat production target of 25.51 million tonnes this year — mainly because of extended spells of rain in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “The westerly wave affecting upper parts of the country is likely to move […]

MULTAN: At least 14 districts across Southern Punjab — the wheat and cotton belt of the country — have seen large scale damage to standing crops due to hailstorms and gale force winds seen recently. The district authorities are still in the process of assessing the scale of the damage, and surveys are still ongoing, […]