The foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) plunged $784 million to a nearly four-year low of $6.72 billion during the week that ended on Dec 2, the central bank said on Thursday. According to the central bank data, the SBP reserves were last recorded below this level during the week ended on Jan 18, 2019, when it had some $6.64bn. Net foreign reserves held by comm
In a move to soothe the financial market amid growing fears of default, State Bank of Pakistan Governor Jameel Ahmed has said the debt repayment situation is completely under control and all the external payment obligations will be met in time. While advising analysts to correct their views about debt repayments, Mr Jameel expressed full confidence that Pakistan will not default. In a podcas
Pakistan has blocked some $225 million of airlines’ dues, becoming one of the top countries restricting the industry from repatriating funds, the global airline association IATA said on Wednesday. Pakistan already became a “blocked fund” country in April along with Sri Lanka. The two countries were being monitored and flagged in IATA’s “watch list countries” in 2021. The amount of airline fu
Stock prices ended their downward slide on Wednesday as their benchmark index stayed in the green throughout the trading session. Arif Habib Ltd said stock prices showed improvement following a clarification by the Ministry of Finance with regard to the ninth review of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. Following “false” messages about the “supposed economic emergency” on social m
IN recent columns, I have written about the control of elites over Pakistan’s polity, the ineffectiveness of our governments and our pursuing the wrong model of import substitution, which results in boom-and-bust cycles. Since our elite already control most of our resources, they aren’t interested in economic growth or increasing the size of the pie. Their preoccupation is with maintaining thei