By every measure, 2022 has been a pretty tumultuous year for Pakistan. On the political front, it saw the first vote of no confidence being passed in parliament, removing former prime minister Imran Khan’s government. The massive protests that followed seem to have put an irreparable dent in the establishment’s role and status. However, all those developments pale in comparison to the economic
WITH the country’s foreign exchange reserves depleting to dangerous levels, all eyes are on the government to see how its negotiations with the IMF pan out. Friday’s pages carried a concerning report on the State Bank’s forex holdings, which stood at just $6.1bn after the week that ended Dec 16. The central bank cited continuing repayments of external debt as the reason behind the sustained dec
Pakistan will head into 2023 with an incredibly gloomy economic outlook and troubles lurking around every corner. In the outgoing year, the people came around to an unprecedented price growth amid the country’s consistently deteriorating balance of payments crisis exacerbated by devastating summer floods and ongoing political uncertainty. Next year we could see inflation entrenched further a
Pakistan is facing a severe foreign exchange crisis. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has effectively stopped banks from retiring letters of credit or opening new ones if they don’t have enough foreign exchange of their own to do the same. The reason is the central bank’s forex reserves are too low to let banks and financial markets work normally. Only external debt repayments are being managed
Pakistan and Uzbekistan on Monday finalised agreements to expand investment and increase bilateral trade to $1 billion. To this end, Commerce Minister Naveed Qamar and Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister Khodjave Jamshid Abdukhakimovich signed nine Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs). Talking to the media on the occasion, Qamar said the two countries had decided to implement the Preferential Trade Agr