Business

HAMBURG: A tender from the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) has attracted high bids to sell 100,000 tonnes of wheat. The positive res­ponse could allow the wheat to be exported without government subsidies, European traders said on Monday. The tender, closed on Jan 11, was issued under a government export programme to reduce high wheat inventories with possible …

KARACHI: The government has borrowed Rs113 billion for budgetary support within just one week, according to latest data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Borrowing for budgetary support has seen manifold increase during the first half of fiscal year as almost all other revenue streams have fallen short of targets. During July 31 to Jan 4, the government’s …

ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday said it was requesting Qatar for reduction in the price of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and its supplies on delayed payments under the existing 15-year supply contract, but would abide by all the other clauses in the contract. Speaking informally to a group of media persons, Petroleum Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan also said Pakistan and …

Salt has been an essential part of cuisine all over the world since time immemorial. Apart from the daily diet, it is used in so many things like paint, detergent, soaps, beauty industry (spas, saloons, massage parlours, health clubs and hydrotherapy) and home decoration. The industry uses it in the manufacturing caustic soda and soda ash. Its use in the …

As a nation, we are bad savers. We are worse while parking our savings in government-run schemes. In the last five fiscal years (2013-2018), Pakistan’s domestic saving growth rate averaged below 7.4 per cent. In each of these years, the government sector’s saving growth remained negative. Its reason was that most of us tend to choose a hefty return over …

In December 2017, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) launched its policy to encourage financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The policy seeks to enhance the sector’s share in private-sector credit from 8.7 per cent to 17pc and increase the number of borrowers from less than 164,500 to half a million by 2020. A year later, the situation remains …

The question that sits uneasily on the mind of every stock investor, analyst, broker and his agent is: has the market finally found the bottom? The Pakistan stock market has had more than its fair share of trouble. When the market dished out a mouth-watering 46 per cent return in 2016, investors entered in droves in search of the investment …

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to shelve a major power project pushed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz regime under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and will axe hundreds of other schemes under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) later this month. Background discussions with government officials suggest that Islamabad has officially conveyed to Beijing that it is …

SHANGHAI: China’s plans for tax cuts targeting smaller companies will help to support employment and economic stability, and will expand the country’s tax base over the long term, Premier Li Keqiang was quoted as saying on Saturday. “Implementing tax cuts for small and micro enterprises is mainly to support employment,” Li said in comments posted on the Chinese government’s website. …

ABU DHABI: The United States is not looking to grant more waivers for Iranian oil imports after the reimposition of US sanctions, the US special representative for Iran said on Saturday, underlining Washington’s push to choke off Tehran’s income. “We are not looking to grant any waivers or exemptions to the import of Iranian crude,” Brian Hook told a industry …