Business

KARACHI: Overall vegetable exports swelled by 90 per cent in quantity and 57pc in value during the first four months of the current fiscal year thanks to brisk potato shipments that have offset the declining trend in onion exports due to huge crop destruction in Sindh and Balochistan. The total vegetable exports stood at 378,826 tonnes during July-October fetching $107 …

KARACHI: With dollar-denominated loan repayments of $73 billion falling due in the next three years, the talk of a debt restructuring is gathering pace. From the incumbent finance minister to the former finance minister as well as an ex-governor of the central bank, influence-wielding voices are calling for restructuring Pakistan’s foreign public debt of roughly $99bn. Speaking to Dawn on Saturday, Topline Securities Associate Director …

ISLAMABAD: The Pakis­tan Medical Association (PMA) has warned that the country’s health delivery system is already in shambles and a shortage of medicines due to the non-opening of letters of credit (LCs) for the import of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) or raw materials will take the situation from bad to worse. Through a press release on Saturday, the doctors’ representative …

KARACHI: Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) on Saturday warned the government that the imposition of a five per cent regulatory duty (RD) on the import of polyester filament yarn would devastate 800,000 power looms and render millions of people jobless. The association held a protest at the Karachi Press Club and rejected the Econ­omic Coordination Commit­tee’s (ECC) decision of levying …

KARACHI: Trading on the stock exchange commenced on a negative note in the outgoing week amid a surprising policy rate hike by the central bank, which increased the benchmark rate by 100 basis points to 16 per cent. The negative mood was reinforced by rising political noise. Arif Habib Ltd said the momentum briefly turned green after the State Bank …

MOSCOW: Russian oil output could fall by 500,000 to one million barrels per day (bpd) early next year after the European Union imposes a ban on seaborne imports from Monday, two sources at major Russian producers said. The estimate is at the lower end of market analysts’ forecasts of the combined impact of the ban and a proposed price cap …

KARACHI: Pakistan should seek the restructuring of entire dollar-denominated debt worth around $99 billion, said former finance minister Shaukat Tarin on Friday. Addressing a press conference, he said the government should go for across-the-board restructuring of foreign loans without any bias for or against bilateral/multilateral creditors. On becoming finance minister in October, Ishaq Dar had vowed to seek the rescheduling …

ISLAMABAD: While the country’s normal development programme has slowed down with fiscal constraints, the government has accelerated spending on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — a portfolio of smaller schemes recommended by the National Assembly members. A meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet, presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, on Friday approved an immediate disbursement of …

ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), posted a decline of 0.16 per cent for the combined income group on a week-on-week basis ending Dec 1, mainly due to a fall in prices of vegetables, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. The SPI on a year-on-year basis for the period …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan repaid a $1 billion international bond, the central bank spokesman said on Friday, amidst growing uncertainty about the country’s ability to meet external financing obligations. The country’s economy has been beset by multiple crises, including the fallout of devastating floods that killed 1,700 people, low foreign exchange reserves and decades-high inflation. “The payment (was) made to Citibank New …