Business

Emirates Telecommunications Group Company (etisalat by e&) announced on Monday its decision to buy a $400 million stake in the Super App developed by Uber Technologies and its subsidiary Careem. With this move, e& will become a majority shareholder in Careem’s Super App alongside Uber and all three of Careem’s co-founders, a statement issued by the ride-hailing company said. Super …

ISLAMABAD: The government plans to embark on a 10-year transition strategy to shift from gas to electricity in commercial, industrial and residential sectors, and push energy-efficient buildings under a Rs45 billion energy efficiency and conservation project, which envisages energy savings of over Rs500bn a year. The project was formally cleared by the Central Development Working Party a few days ago …

Digitisation can significantly boost the GDP growth rate and expand the size of the country’s economy. A report on Pakistan’s digital journey, Recommendations for Digital Transformation in Pakistan, argues that digitisation has the potential to add $60 billion to the economy by 2030 if the government creates a favourable investment climate for local and foreign investors to fill in the …

I am currently faced with a situation. I have a fully executed, legally binding contract, and nobody is responding to our letters or phone calls to make payments, let alone executing them. The ordeal is over seven months old with no end in sight, and the bad news is that this is not the only case. This is how the …

The politics in Pakistan have entered uncharted territory. Perhaps it is the novelty of the situation, besides the conflict within and without institutions, that has consumed the power wielders at a time when the stark economic crisis is destroying lives and livelihoods and punishing investors who trusted the country with their capital. “If record high inflation threatening food security, historic …

KARACHI: Contrary to a general perception of a severe shortage of foreign exchange, Pakistanis in unprecedented numbers are leaving for Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah despite a massive surge in its cost. Since Pakistan has been facing a serious shortage of foreign exchange, it was expected that Pakistanis may not go in large numbers this year even when the Umrah …

ISLAMABAD: Mobile phones worth $7.19 million have been imported illegally without opening the letters of credit (LCs) or utilising the banking channel, disclosed a report of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Saturday. A senior official of FBR said despite an unannounced ban on the import of mobile phones and their accessories by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), …

KARACHI: It may sound counter-intuitive, but research shows the likelihood of unemployment in Pakistan grows in proportion to the level of education. A poorly developed labour market that’s unable to accommodate a rapidly growing number of educated workers has led to a high graduate unemployment rate. A recent research paper written by Henna Ahsan and Muhammad Jehangir Khan of the Pakistan Institute …

KARACHI: The stock market commenced the outgoing week on a negative note as participants expected an interest rate hike by the central bank. Arif Habib Ltd said the noise on the political front fed the negative momentum. However, shares witnessed a rally after the Monetary Policy Committee of the central bank announced a lower-than-expected jump in the interest rate. Meanwhile, …

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sat­urday said he had cance­lled his trip to Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monet­ary Fund and World Bank on the prime minister’s orders, due to the political turmoil in Pakistan. However, he assured the nation that the IMF deal was on track and the government had already done all that was …