Business

ISLAMABAD: China is reported to have agreed to a revised cost of $6.6bn for Mainline-1 (ML-1) — the 1,872km Karachi-Peshawar railway track — and would submit a modified design plan for the project to Pakistan latest by October 31. Informed sources told Dawn that Communications Secretary Khurram Agha who heads the Pakistani side of CPEC’s Joint Working Groups (JWG) of Aviation, Railways …

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Friday allowed the federal government to increase electricity rates by Rs3.28 per unit for all consumers across the country for six months — October 2023 to March 2024 — with additional revenue impact going beyond Rs200bn. The increase has been allowed under quarterly tariff adjustment (QTA) mechanism to finance the additional …

KARACHI: Bulls took over the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exch­ange on Thursday following the announcement by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the date of the next general election. Topline Securities said share prices experienced a surge amid bullish sentiments attributed to the ECP statement. The development “significantly boosted” the investors’ confidence and led to a “remarkable” …

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Privatisation Fawad Has­san Fawad said on Thursday that the caretaker government has not included any additional state-owned entity in the list of privatisation and it is only taking forward the process of those entities which were included in the privatisation programme by the previous government. Speaking at a news conference, Mr Fawad said in clear terms that …

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has enhanced incentives for banks and exchange companies to increase home remittances which have been declining for more than a year. The central bank on Thursday issued two circulars for banks and exchange companies. “For any incremental home remittance of the financial institution (FI) up to five per cent, between five and 10pc, …

KARACHI: As the crackdown on sugar hoarders and speculators has started yielding some relief, the arrival of three ships loaded with imported wheat has also brought down prices of grain as well as flour varieties. A ship carrying 37,000 tonnes of Bulgarian wheat would start unloading the grain in a day or two while two more ships carrying 55,000 tonnes …

LAHORE: A faulty refrigeration system of the shipping line has been blamed for the fungus detected in the fresh chilled meat shipment of a Pakistani company to the United Arab Emirates that prompted the Gulf state to ban imports, at least for the time being, and bringing a bad name to Pakistan. The ban follows the arrival of several containers of …

ISLAMABAD: While the South Asian region will be growing at 5.4 per cent and maintaining single-digit inflation (at 6.6pc), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasts Pakistan limping at 1.9pc growth rate and its population will continue reeling under elevated cost of living, reflected by a 25pc rate, during the current fiscal year. In its flagship Asian Development Outlook (ADO) released …

ISLAMABAD: A Senate panel on Wednesday expressed serious displeasure over finance ministry’s failure to even hold a meeting with Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government in three weeks, let alone address their ‘genuine’ grievances, and assured the AJK premier that they would not allow any discrimination in provision of divisible pool resources and net hydel profit on power projects to …

KARACHI: IT professionals working for overseas clients unleashed a barrage of remittance-related complaints on Wednesday at a seminar attended by representatives of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and commercial banks. Organised by the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication in collaboration with the SBP and the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), the …