Business

KARACHI: Investors’ fears of stock meltdown materialised as the KSE-100 index sank 333 points, or 0.71 per cent, to close at 46,397 on Wednesday. According to schedule, MSCI, the global index provider, announced its decision on Tuesday night, reclassifying Pakistan to Frontier Market (FM) from the Emerging Market (EM) from Dec 1. That ended the Pakistani market’s four-year stint in …

ISLAMABAD: The government has started the audit of all oil refineries and oil marketing companies (OMCs) to rule out the possibility of irregularities in taxes, product sourcing and transportation costs. A senior government official told Dawn the Petroleum Division had asked 25 OMCs and refineries to ensure availability of relevant personal and entire record for examination by the audit teams. In the …

ISLAMABAD: The government’s plan to raise up to $1 billion through auction of additional spectrum on Sept 16 is likely to be adversely affected because two out of the four Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) are reluctant to participate actively demanding low rates, Dawn has learnt from sources in the telecom sector. The sources said the senior managements of the two CMOs have …

ISLAMABAD: The first-ever EU-Pakistan Business Forum for Small and Medium Enterprises was launched on Wednesday which is aimed at boosting trade with countries in the European Union. The objective of the forum is to provide opportunities to both EU and Pakistani businesses to work together to become engines of development and partnership and contribute to enhancing bilateral trade. The business …

KARACHI: Banks approved over Rs59 billion till the end of August under the government’s flagship markup subsidy scheme Mera PakistanMera Ghar. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday said that as a result of numerous measures taken by it and support of the government, lending for the housing finance scheme had picked up momentum. The SBP said since the …

KARACHI: The foreign exchange inflows through Roshan Digital Account (RDA) reached $2.114 billion at the end of August. The State Bank of Paki­stan’s data shows that the RDA inflows have significantly gone up since June this year, which puts the government in a better position to face a much bigger current account deficit expected in FY22. The RDA was introduced …

KARACHI: The parent company of Nestle Pakistan mopped up as much as 2.55 per cent of the total issued shares from the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday at a price of Rs6.94 billion. In a regulatory filing, the biggest listed food company in terms of market capitalisation said that Société des Produits Nestlé S.A., which owned more than 59pc …

ISLAMABAD: The state-run Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has announced a gas and condensate discovery in Frontier Region Lakki of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The OGDCL said in a statement that it spud-in Wali#01 well on Dec 2, 2019, as an exploratory well and drilled down to total depth of 4,727 metres (measured depth) inside Kawagarh Formation. Based on the …

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday appeared set to increase the electricity tariff it had put on hold in April as part of revised Circular Debt Managem­ent Plan (CDMP) and efforts to ensure continuous foreign inflows from lending agencies – particularly the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The tariff increase along with CDMP is expected to set …

KARACHI: While it collects property tax from six major cities of Sindh, the provincial government on Tuesday decided to conduct a property survey only in Karachi in an attempt to increase the tax base by bringing more people into the property tax net. Currently, the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department is collecting property tax from Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed …