Business

Thanks to the Chinese donation, Pakistan will hopefully kick-start a Covid-19 vaccination drive this week, administering half a million doses to public healthcare workers, signalling the beginning of the end of the deadly virus a year after the first case was reported in the country. A deal to source 10m more doses from China has also been reported. Citing dangers …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed on Sunday that inflation had currently declined from the level of 2018 when the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) came to power. “The government’s efforts are coming to fruition as both the consumer price index and core inflation had touched lower than the time of government’s formation,” the prime minister said in his tweet. “More good …

The inflation rate eased to 5.65 per cent in January, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Monday, from 8pc the previous month. A decrease in the prices of vegetables, pulses, eggs, spices and chicken helped bring down the consumer price index (CPI), the bureau said. It said the Urban CPI recorded a decrease of 0.16pc while Rural CPI …

ISLAMABAD: For the fifth fortnight in a row, the government on Sunday increased the prices of all petroleum products by 2.5 per cent to 4.6pc for the next 15 days. According to an announcement by the Prime Minister Office, the ex-depot prices of high speed diesel (HSD) and petrol were increased by Rs2.88 and Rs2.70 per litre, respectively. The prices …

KARACHI: Bulls managed to drive away the bears in the outgoing week to reconnect with the earlier three-week winning spree. The KSE-100 index stormed past the 46,000 points resistance and settled at 46,386 points to record gains of 518 points, or 1.1 per cent, in the outgoing week. The index closed positive in four out of five sessions in the …

LAHORE: Pakistan is struggling to achieve a decent cotton output this year if the arrival of 5.5 million bales reported by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) on Jan 18 is any guide. Overall, the country’s cotton production is estimated to decline during the present marketing year by almost a third to 5.7m bales from 8.3m bales last year and …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani exporters received more than $5 million worth of export orders from Sudan under the ‘Look Africa’ policy. An official announcement by the Ministry of Commerce said that the orders are the outcome of the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) International Trade Fair at Khartoum which was held from Jan 21 to 28, 2021. This participation has opened …

KARACHI: Rural areas were hit more by food inflation than the urban areas, with the food inflationary gap between these areas increasing mostly in the second half of the calendar year 2020, the State Bank said in a recent report. The SBP report on inflation shows that food prices gradually increased during the last 12 months, both in urban and …

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) collection in the first seven months (July-January) of the current fiscal year stood at Rs2.570 trillion, surpassing the projected Rs2.550tr target by Rs20 billion, shows provisional data released on Saturday. However, the revenue collection increased by 6.4 per cent year-on-year when compared to Rs2.416tr during the same period last year. While preparing the …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Friday directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to recover the amount paid to fake registered persons (RPs) claiming refunds on the basis of fake/flying invoices. The direction came from the president while rejecting a representation filed by the FBR against the order of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) in a case of bogus …