Business

• No subsidies for zero-rated industries, Kissan package from March 1 • Circular debt flow to be contained by Rs340bn ISLAMABAD: Moving swiftly to meet prior actions of the IMF programme, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Friday approved imposition of a special financing surcharge of Rs3.39 per unit in average power tariff, in addition to quarterly tariff adjustments …

ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation remained at an elevated level compared to a year ago, driven by high prices of onions, chicken, eggs, diesel and petrol, official data showed on Friday. Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), was 34.83 per cent year-on-year during the week ended on Feb 9, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said. The items whose prices …

ISLAMABAD: The Ethiopian Airlines will commence operations from Karachi on March 26, said Jemal Beker Abdula, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia in Islamabad. “In this critical time in history, it is important to bring the two countries together,” Ambassador Abdula told Dawn exclusively. The pan-African airline is already flying to 130 destinations and will be an instrument to connect Pakistan with …

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank, in its latest report, has observed that Pakistan’s inability to allocate all its talent and resources to the most productive uses has stunted the economic growth. Pakistan’s economy can grow sustainably only if the country introduces productivity enhancing reforms that facilitate a better allocation of resources into more dynamic activities, and of talent to more productive …

KARACHI: Sovereign bonds slumped on Friday after Pakistan’s bailout talks with the IMF ended without an agreement. The country’s bond due for repayment the soonest, in April 2024, tumbled 4.6 cents on the dollar or roughly nine per cent. Other bonds with longer repayment dates fell between two and three cents to leave them at less than half their face value. …

KARACHI: While expressing their strong resentment toward the justification for pushing up prices to unprecedented levels of up to Rs303,500 per tonne, builders and developers have suspended the purchase of steel bars for seven days. Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) Chairman Altaf Tai said no steel bars would be unloaded at the construction sites of the association’s members from …

Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) plunged during intraday trading on Friday as a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the completion of the ninth review of a $7 billion loan programme was delayed. The benchmark KSE-100 index lost 568.21 points, or 1.34 per cent, to reach 41,898.38 points when trading was suspended for Friday prayers. Topline …

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday that the government had received the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) related to the completion of the ninth review of a $7 billion loan programme, indicating that a staff-level agreement with the lender was still pending. The MEFP is a key document that describes all …

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial on Friday rejected the notion that the country was headed towards bankruptcy and asked the government to adopt measures to stem foreign currency smuggling. A three-member bench headed by Justice Bandial resumed a hearing into the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) challenge to the Lahore High Court’s bar on the taxman from …

Pakistan’s economy can grow sustainably only if the country introduces “productivity-enhancing reforms that facilitate a better allocation of resources and talent”, a World Bank press release summarising its new report said on Friday. The report, titled ‘From swimming in sand to high and sustainable growth’, asked for resources to be allocated to more dynamic activities and for talent to be allocated to more productive …