Category: Business

Food trade between Pakistan and India should not suffer — even when they search for peace on the border. Food commodity markets remained apparently smooth during and after the breakout of a war-like situation between India and Pakistan at the end of February. The situation has since seen some de-escalation. But it is naïve to […]

China can use reserve requirements and interest rates to support economic growth, Premier Li Keqiang said on March 15, promising broad policy steps to prevent a sharper slowdown for the world’s second-biggest economy. Li’s comments suggest Beijing is ready to roll out more forceful stimulus measures to ease strains on businesses and consumers. China has […]

Pakistan’s consumption of imported coal is projected to rise by a little more than a quarter to between 20 and 22 million tonnes in five years as new cement capacity and power plants based on (imported) coal gradually become operational. The country’s current coal imports are estimated to increase to over 16m tonnes by the […]

A recent meeting of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy Council (NFISC) chaired by Finance Minister Asad Umar has set a target for generating minimum three million jobs over the next five years. For this, soft loans will be provided for low cost housing (LCH), small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and small farmers. Jobs are […]

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday extended the last date for filing of income tax returns for the tax year 2018 until March 31 in order to facilitate mainly those taxpayers who were excluded from the Active Taxpayers’ List (ATL) for availing lower rates of withholding taxes. The ATL list was issued on […]

ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee on Friday asked the federal government to demystify details of projects and negotiations under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), criticising it for withholding key information that could affect coordinated response to the opportunities they offer. The Senate special committee on CPEC, which met here at the Parliament House with Senator Sherry […]

ISLAMABAD: The government is keen to devise innovative financing model, develop capital markets and mobilise private sector investments in infrastructure and social sectors, Minister for Finance Asad Umar said on Friday. In a meeting with a delegation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the finance minister said these initiatives will provide fiscal space to the […]

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s textile and clothing exports rose by two per cent year-on-year to $8.9 billion in the first eight months of current fiscal year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday. One of the reasons for the partial revival in exports is a result of cash subsidy offered under the Prime Minister’s Exports […]

MUMBAI: A group of more than 100 experts sounded a pre-election alarm Friday over Indian economic data, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of tweaking or burying unwelcoming numbers. Modi is vulnerable over his economic record in the polls starting on April 11, in particular a failure to meet promises to create enough jobs for […]

ISLAMABAD: Out of the 400 offshore bank accounts of Pakistanis involving an amount of over $1 million each, the Federal Board of Revenue has managed to recover tax in one instance only — a mere Rs170 million ($1.22m) — in the past five months. Following the Panama Leaks cases, the FBR only managed to raise […]