Business

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan welcomes dev­e­­­­­lopment partners and enterprises from around the globe to strengthen their inv­estment in the country as well as trade lin­kages and consider opportunities offered under the Special Economic Zones (SEZs). During a briefing hosted on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the additional secretary (Asia-Pacific) said the underlying vision of CPEC was based on Pakistan’s “desire for connectivity and …

MOSCOW: Russia is encountering difficulties in the global expansion of its payment system set up to circumvent Ukraine-related sanctions, the head of Russia’s central bank said on Friday. Visa and Mastercard suspended their operations in Russia following the Ukraine offensive, meaning foreign-issued cards no longer worked there and cards issued in Russia no longer worked abroad. Bank transfers between Europe …

KARACHI: The stock market remained under pressure throughout the session on Friday amidst sideways trading because of the investors’ concerns about flood-related losses and their impact on the economic output. Arif Habib Ltd said the stock market opened in the positive zone but traded within a range afterwards. The continued depreciation of the rupee against the dollar coupled with political …

KARACHI: Amid the daily dollar rate appreciation, banks have doubled their buying of the US currency and are sending it abroad via credit cards while the government grapples to control greenback outflows. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday reported the closing price of the dollar at Rs236.84, an increase of 96 paise compared to the previous day’s rate …

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation slightly decelerated to 40.58 per cent largely driven by prices of essential kitchen items and high energy costs. The weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) posted a slight decline of 0.19pc on a week-on-week (WoW) basis that ended on Sept 15, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data showed on Friday. The WoW …

Oil prices edged higher on Friday but were on track for a weekly decline amid fears of sharp interest rate hikes that would slam global growth and hit fuel demand. Brent crude futures were up 24 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $91.08 a barrel as of 0315 GMT, but were down 1.9pc for the week so far. US West …

The dollar hovered near its recent peaks on Friday as expectations that the United States Federal Reserve would need to hike more to tame inflation sent Treasury yields higher and kept the greenback in demand. The towering dollar pushed the offshore yuan past the critical threshold of seven per dollar for the first time in more than two years overnight, …

The rupee, which has been declining for over a week, fell by 96 paise against the dollar during early trade in the interbank market on Friday. The PKR closed at Rs236.84 per dollar, a 0.41 per cent depreciation from yesterday’s close of Rs235.88. Fores Association of Pakistan (FAP) Chairman Malik Bostan said the rupee’s value was declining due to the …

COLOMBO: Bankrupt Sri Lanka’s economy shrank 8.4 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter, official data showed on Thursday, as the island nation’s unprecedented financial crisis reached its peak. Months of acute food, fuel and medicine shortages, extended blackouts and runaway inflation have plagued the country after it ran out of dollars to finance even the most essential imports. Sri …

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani briefly became the world’s second-richest person on the Forbes real-time billionaire tracker on Friday, weeks after becoming the first Asian to break into the top three. The self-made billionaire’s net worth surged $4 billion overnight to $154bn, according to Forbes, ranking him ahead of LVMH’s Bernard Arnault and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Tesla founder Elon Musk remained …