Business

HONG KONG: Hong Kong has decided to let retail investors trade cryptocurrency under its new regulatory regime because “virtual assets are going to stay”, the city’s minister overseeing financial services said on Tuesday. Cryptocurrencies have been banned in mainland China since 2021, but the former British colony, which has a separate financial system and regulators, has announced plans to become …

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) remains in touch with Pakistan’s authorities in order to pave the way for a board meeting before a financing programme expires at the end of June, the IMF mission chief for Pakistan said. Ordinarily, a board meeting on a review of the programme would require a prior staff-level agreement, which in Pakistan’s case would unlock …

ISLAMABAD: Acute food insecurity in Pakistan is likely to further exacerbate in coming months if the economic and political crisis further worsens, compounding the effects of the 2022 floods, warns a new United Nations report published on Monday. The report titled, Hunger Hotspots: FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World …

KARACHI: Pakistan’s international bonds continue to trade at a distressed level despite forceful statements by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar about the unlikelihood of a sovereign default. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the interest rate on the dollar debt issued by Pakistan is hovering between 30 and 40 percentage points above the US treasury bond of comparable duration. For context, the …

KARACHI: Credit cards have failed to gain currency in Pakistan as they hold a meagre 4 per cent share in the overall card payment system due to the high-interest rates banks charge to users, mainly dominated by males. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), in its third quarterly (January-March) review of Payment Systems released on Monday, stated with 37.1 million debit cards …

ISLAMABAD: The government has a “strategic plan” to promote Islamic finance, but banks and other financial institutions should not exploit the situation in the name of “Sharia compliance”. “We have a financial inclusion strategy that covers all the components needed to create Islamic financing, but the price has to be fair and competitive so that the first target of having …

The game of chickens in the political arena can lead to economic malaise; the United States is on the verge of it. The deadlock between President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy has amplified the severity of the question, “Is the US really going towards a default? This question, even its imagination, is enough to send chills down the spine, for …

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a unique character known for his obsession of making his guests fit perfectly in his iron bed. His methodology, however, was disturbingly brutal. He altered his guests, not the bed. If a guest was too tall, he’d cut their legs off. If they were too short, he’d stretch them until they occupied the bed entirely. …

Forex-starved Pakistan earned $2.6 billion last fiscal year through exports of information and communication technology (ICT) services. And within ten months of this year, ICT exports fetched $2.1bn, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Every dollar counts for Pakistan. ICT exports that are part of overall services exports are an important source of forex earnings. They can potentially …

The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s (PSX) benchmark KSE-100 index opened in the green on Monday and gained more than 300 points on expectations of an “investor-friendly budget” for the fiscal year of 2024, which will be presented on June 9. According to the PSX website, the index closed at 41,340.06 points, up 0.92 per cent or 375.52 points. “The market rose …