Pakistan’s financial inclusion numbers are the worst in the region for both males and females. According to the latest data, about 8 out of 10 women in Pakistan do not have access to a bank account. Given the relatively low rate of digital adoption, this means one of two things: women carry cards in the names of their male relatives, so all their expenses are open to scrutiny, or all their deal
We, as a nation, produce much less than we consume. In the predominantly consumption-led economic growth, the domestic demand is met by imports that ballooned to $80 billion last fiscal year. And imports are not a component part of the Gross Domestic Product. Workers’ remittances finance domestic consumption and are not channelled into productive activities. The brain drain deprives us of the s
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
The cancerous disease of Pakistan’s power market is becoming terminal with each passing day despite overdoses of price shocks to consumers. At the start of the fiscal year in July, the PDM government came with a capital blow to increase electricity tariff by a massive 47 per cent (Rs7.91 per unit) to “clear the backlog” left behind by the previous PTI government in “violation of international agre
According to many agricultural economists, current food prices, coupled with their high volatility and long-term rising trend, speak loudly about Pakistan’s precarious food security situation. Continued financial insecurity and, as a result, dwindling agricultural subsidies, along with the adverse impact of climate change on crop yield, are causing an increasingly uncertain situation for food supp