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Textile exporters hope for revival after dull Christmas season

Textile exporters in Pakistan, like their regional counterparts, struggle to be merry this Christmas season, as a buying freeze abroad has hit all segments, from apparel, denim and knits to home textiles, though they hope things will get better in the coming months. “This time around, we did not get Christmas orders,” says Sohail Pasha, chairman of the Pakistan Textile Exporters Association.

PSX reacts to surprise rate hike, plunges over 800 points

The Pakistan Stock Exchange’s benchmark KSE-100 index plunged over 800 points on Monday, with the slump being attributed to the central bank’s surprise move to hike the policy rate by 100 basis points on Friday evening. The index saw a sharp slump right after the opening bell, dropping more than 600 points to 42,282.48 in the first 30 minutes of trading. It eventually closed at 42,071.34, down

Why rooftop solar panels are the easiest way for Pakistan to reduce emissions

The message that came through the United Nations’ climate change conference (COP27) in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh is loud and clear: nations need to do more to slow down climate change or the consequences will be catastrophic. For Pakistan, the deadly effects of climate change are already here. This year’s monsoon floods have caused devastation on a scale never seen before. At COP27, Pakistan i

Growth shocks to render more jobless, warns ILO

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a new report on Monday warned that the Asia-Pacific region still lacks 22 million jobs in 2022, and this number is projected to increase to 26 million in 2023 given the headwinds to growth in the current geopolitical global and regional context. In its report, “Asia-Pacific Employment and Social Outlook 2022: Rethinking sectoral strategies for a hu

Builders inflate prices of flats

‘Apartmentarianism’ is the philosophy of real estate investors that is bolstered by the fact that 73 per cent of the apartment owners in Pakistan are not apartment dwellers. Around 75pc of apartment residents live in rental flats because of their low buying power. However, in reality, apartment living is not yet in vogue. The real asset is a high return on investment for developers backed by their