Business

LAHORE: A number of petrol pumps in several major and small cities of Punjab have been facing severe shortage of petrol, annoying motorists who were seen waiting in long queues at petrol pumps to buy the commodity. The situation seems worst in some major cities like Lahore, Gujranwala and Faisalabad where several petrol pumps have either no or meager supply …

ISLAMABAD: As the International Monetary Fund and the government currently discussing a plan to rescue Pakistan’s economy, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has proposed that the Fund should work with Islamabad to strengthen social protection and mitigate harm to the most vulnerable by advancing economic rights. IMF should work with the government by broadening social protection systems and minimising reform measures …

KARACHI: Manufac­turers have increased the prices of various milk products including baby formula. The rate of one litre tetra milk pack has been raised to Rs250 effective Feb 20 from Rs230 while it was available at Rs220 in October 2022. A retailer said that the company raised Nido 1 plus 900-gram and 375- gram rates to Rs1,780 and Rs770 as …

ISLAMABAD: The government has approved the maintenance dredging of a navigational channel of Gwadar Port with an escalated cost of Rs4.7 billion – a drastic increase from Rs1bn estimated in June 2022 – to avoid any mishap to cargo ships or imposition of penalties from Chinese port operators for business loss. The navigation channel of the port was last cleared …

ISLAMABAD: The export of services grew nearly three per cent in the first half of the current fiscal year from a year ago mainly driven by information technology. The growth was achieved at a time when the exports of commodities continued to shrink for the past few months, according to the latest data compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. …

Shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued their bull run on Tuesday, rising immediately after the opening bell. The benchmark KSE-100 index jumped 509.61 points, or 1.24 per cent, to reach 41,700.38 points at 10:03am. Dalal Securities CEO Siddique Dalal said the index rose on expectations that the gas sector’s circular debt would be resolved which would result in …

ISLAMABAD: Consumers must brace for another hike in electricity tariff as the government was left with no other option but to receive additional payment from consumers to retire the power sector debt hovering at Rs1,000bn. This will be in addition to a slew of other measures, including removal of subsidies and other adjustments, to retire the debt. The move is …

Alibaba Group subsidiary, Daraz Group, an e-commerce platform, is reducing its workforce by 11 per cent to prepare for the ‘current market reality’, the group’s CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen said in a letter to employees shared on the company website. Mikkelsen cited a difficult market environment, with a war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, increasing taxes, and removal …

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday modified an interim order of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and directed wealthy taxpayers to deposit their 50 per cent due super tax directly with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) within one week. A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial, took up the FBR plea against the impugned …

Google said on Monday it will release a conversational chatbot named Bard, setting up an artificial intelligence showdown with Microsoft which has invested billions in the creators of ChatGPT, the hugely popular language app that convincingly mimics human writing. ChatGPT, created by San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems or programming code on demand …