Business

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange witnessed on Wednesday a range-bound session owing to investors’ concerns about the spread of the new variant of Covid-19, according to Topline Securities. The rising number of Omicron cases may lead to lockdowns and scaled-back economic activity going forward. It is spreading at a high pace in Karachi as 339 of the total 464 new …

ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Wednesday approved import of 50,000 tonnes of urea from China on an immediate basis subject to clearance from the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority. A meeting of the ECC presided over by Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin allowed the import on a government-to-government basis and tasked the …

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday invited Omani investors to invest in different sectors, such as fisheries, water, construction and food processing. “The Sindh government is ready to work with them on a public-private partnership basis,” he told a 15-member delegation of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI). The delegation, led by OCCI chairperson …

KARACHI: The positive momentum on the Pakistan Stock Exchange continued for the second consecutive day on Tuesday on the back of a positive development relating to the resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme. According to Topline Securities, investors welcomed the statement by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin that a delay of two to four days in the approval of the …

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday finally laid the controversial finance supplementary bill, generally known as mini-budget, before the Senate amid opposition’s noisy protest as Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani referred the bill to the house committee concerned with the directive to finalise recommendations within three days. The opposition members stood up and raised anti-government slogans as soon as the chairman gave floor …

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday restrained the provincial tax authorities from taking any coercive action against the state-run Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) and allowed it to clear the LNG consignment without demanding infrastructure cess. However, the two-judge bench led by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi directed the PLL to furnish a bank guarantee equivalent to the differential …

ISLAMABAD: Amid a strong backlash from the IT and telecom industry against the proposed increase in tax rates, the government is considering revisiting the measures proposed in the mini-budget. Not only the five telecom companies have expressed their concerns and disappointment over the move, but even Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Aminul Haq is opposed to the proposed measures. …

LAHORE: Punjab Min­ister for Agriculture Syed Hussain Jahania Gardezi on Monday said that area under cotton cultivation in the province was 17 per cent less than the previous year at 3.161 million acres. “Despite less area under cotton cultivation, 5.168m bales were produced and average production remained at 23.9 maund per acre. The 21pc increase in per acre production of …

KARACHI: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin and State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Reza Baqir have assured exchange companies of facilitating their businesses while the firms said they could bring up to $10 billion annually to the country. At a meeting with exchange companies led by Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan chairman Malik Bostan in Karachi on Jan 1, the finance …

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has introduced a framework to grant licences for setting up wholly digital banks that will provide all the banking services, from account opening to deposit and lending, through digital means and the customers will not need to visit any branch physically. “The SBP has set the stage for the dawn of a new …