Business

ISLAMABAD: With the novel application of high-level technology combining satellite remote sensing and mathematical modelling supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), water and land management will be improved for more than 750,000 hectares of agricultural land in Punjab. The Water-Financing Partnership Facility (WFPF)-supported approach has enabled the application of the new technology which has been used elsewhere to inform …

KARACHI: Ambassa­dor of the European Union Raina Kionka has said that the GSP+ status for Pakistan has been rolled over without any changes to the rules of framework so everything was going to stay the same up to 2027. “We also have elections in June 2024, which means there will be a political changeover in the parliament and the EU’s …

KARACHI: As Pakistani exporters continue cashing in on the situation that emerged after the Indian ban on onion exports, local consumers are taking the hit of an improvement in foreign exchange earnings by paying up to Rs240 per kg for the commodity in the domestic markets. When India imposed a ban on Dec 8, 2023 till March 2024, local rates …

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government plans to get going Pakistan Development Fund Ltd (PDFL) — a $1.5 billion state-owned shell entity — to provide an alternative financing source to public sector development projects through divestment of government stakes in public sector and public-private partnerships (PPP). The entity was created in June 2014 with inflows of $1.5bn financial support from Saudi Arabia …

ISLAMABAD: The services sector exports in November contracted year-on-year for the first time during the current fiscal year, according to data compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The services exports fell to $631.93 million in November marking a 15.85 per cent decline from the $750.95m in the corresponding month last year. Contrary to this, merchandise exports reversed the trend …

ISLAMABAD: The World Economic Forum (WEF) launched on Monday the Global Cooperation Barometer to measure the state of global cooperation. The barometer indicates that global cooperation was resilient in multiple dimensions from 2012 until 2020 but overall cooperation declined by 2 per cent from 2020 to 2022. The Global Cooperation Baro­meter, developed in collaboration with McKinsey and Company, uses 42 …

Japan’s Nikkei share average closed at a 33-year high on Tuesday, as investors snapped up chip-related stocks tracking an overnight Wall Street rally in technology shares. The Nikkei rose 1.16 per cent to finish at 33763.18, its highest since March 1990. Of the 225 stocks in the index, 156 shares advanced. The broader Topix index rose 0.82pc to 2,413.09. Chip-related …

New details and statistics continue to emerge, pointing to the shrinking geopolitical clout of major Arab oil producers. The countries in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and its allies in the Opec+ are no longer the sole arbiters of the supply side of the global energy dynamics. Markets are no longer in their absolute control. And this carries …

ISLAMABAD: The nation’s state-run commercial entities incurred losses amounting to a staggering Rs1.395 trillion over the fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the latest consolidated report by the Ministry of Finance has revealed. This figure is more than twice the size of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), bringing to light significant concerns regarding financial management and operational efficiency in the …

Despite higher energy and interest rate costs and even amidst stagnant industrial output, Pakistan’s merchandise exports are growing — thanks to strong overseas demand, reduced bureaucratic impediments to export growth and a shift in export earnings from textiles to agricultural products and food. On the other hand, merchandise imports continue to fall despite the recent decline in the US dollar …