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ADB boosts Asia-Pacific food security fund to $40 billion

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced on Sunday it plans to expand its support for long-term food and nutrition security in Asia and the Pacific by $26 billion, increasing its total funding commitment for such initiatives to $40bn over the 2022-2030 period. ADB President Masato Kanda announced the new target during the bank’s annual meeting in Milan, Italy. The expansion builds on the ADB’

Microdosing insurance via tech and telecom

For most Pakistanis, insurance remains a foreign concept — something distant, complicated, and often seen as unnecessary. But this disconnect comes at a cost. With insurance penetration at just 0.87 per cent of GDP in 2022, covering a mere 3pc of the population, compared to a global average of around 6.7pc, millions of families across Pakistan remain one accident, illness, or disaster away from

Navigating timelines in tariff trade talks

The United States, according to media reports, is facing significant challenges in securing so many trade deals within a short span of 90 days during which reciprocal tariffs have to be set. While the markets wait for trade negotiations with 90 countries at the same time, global trading is grinding to a standstill with problems similar to what we saw during Covid-19, writes Chief Economist at i

Finance: Addressing the root issues

Whether India will heed the counsel of global powers, including the United States, and how it will interpret Pakistan’s warning of a “swift, resolute and notch-up” response, as per the army chief, to any act of aggression remains unclear. Consequently, the risk of military escalation cannot be entirely ruled out despite intense diplomatic efforts aimed at averting a clash between the two nuclear-a

Looking forward to lower oil prices

For more than five years now, Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest oil exporter and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (Opec+) kingpin — has been striving to balance the global oil demand and supply by controlling output. Riyadh has been at the forefront of this effort and has been shouldering the major weight of the Opec+ output cut mechanism. In recent months, Opec+ cut