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IMF, Islamabad resume talks, virtually

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pakistan resumed their talks on Monday, with Islamabad hoping that these virtual discussions lead to a deal that eases up ever-increasing pressure on the country’s ailing economy. In Islamabad, Finance Secretary Hamed Yaqoob Sheikh told Reuters the “duration (of the talks) cannot be confirmed but we intend to wrap these up at the soonest”. Pakistan h

Pakistan plans to quadruple domestic coal-fired power, move away from gas

Pakistan plans to quadruple its domestic coal-fired capacity to reduce power generation costs and will not build new gas-fired plants in the coming years, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan told Reuters on Monday, as it seeks to ease a crippling foreign-exchange crisis. A shortage of natural gas, which accounts for over a third of the country’s power output, plunged large areas into hours of

Pakistan returns draft MEFP to IMF

The Interna­tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pakistan resumed their virtual talks on Tuesday as the government responded to the draft of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) shared by the Fund. Memoranda of Economic and Financial Policies are prepared by the member country. A memorandum describes the policies that a country intends to implement in the context of its request fo

SBP moves to ensure export proceeds realised in time

For ensuring the timely realisation of export proceeds, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has decided to initiate necessary action in all those cases where full or partial proceeds are not realised within the prescribed period. In a circular issued on Tuesday, the central bank directed banks [authorised dealers] to adopt the following procedure at the time of conversion of ex­port proceeds into

Toyota prices increased again

Despite a steep fall in sales amid plant closure, Indus Motor Company (IMC) has increased the prices of various Toyota vehicles for the second time in less than a month by Rs200,000-Rs890,000. The company said that economic uncertainties and the extremely volatile rupee have adversely impacted the cost of manufacturing, making it difficult for the company to hold the current indicative selling