Foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) further declined by $134 million to $7.8 billion during the week ending Nov 18. The poor reserves position casts a negative impact on the exchange rate as the dollar is appreciating on a day-to-day basis in the interbank market. It appreciated by 50 paise during the last three working days. However, the interbank rate provide
Oil prices rose in Asia on Friday, despite thin market liquidity, after a week marked by worries about Chinese demand and haggling over a Western price cap on Russian oil. Brent crude futures rose by 28 cents, or 0.33 per cent, to trade at $85.62 a barrel at 0410 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed 49 cents, or 0.49pc, from Wednesday’s close to $78.43 a barrel. There
As the cost of the flood protection plan goes up by almost 51 per cent even without its launch, Pakistan expects about $13 billion from international donor agencies and lending partners to finance nearly 80pc of the Resilient Recovery and Reconstruction Framework (3RF) over the next three years. This is part of the estimated financing plan being finalised by the federal government in consultati
Pakistani currency failed on Wednesday to sustain the little gains made against the US dollar a day ago as it resumed the downtrend amid increased demand for the greenback for import payments and foreign debt repayment. The rupee dropped 0.17% (or Rs0.39) to close at a six-week low at Rs223.81 to a dollar in the inter-bank market. The government’s priority to gradually relax its administrati
The success of Pakistan’s privatisation programme has remained limited to only generating $11 billion in sale proceeds, as the country could not achieve the post-privatisation objectives of improving efficiency and competition, says a new independent study. The findings come amid the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) push for approval of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Bill to improve effi