As the first review under the IMF’s $3bn Stand-By Arrangement is set to start on Thursday (today), the rupee maintained a downward trajectory on Wednesday against the US dollar creating uncertainty about the future trend. The greenback has been appreciating for the last eight sessions but the appreciation of Rs1.18 on Wednesday shook the confidence of the importers and exporters as well. Som
Caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar said on Wednesday Pakistan is facing a trade-off between raising climate finance and development finance. “I think we need to be conscious that getting money is a big issue that we face in addressing the climate agenda,” she said, noting that seeking money for climate finance undercuts other development finance requirements. Speaking at the secon
Share prices rose on Tuesday on the back of the status quo announced in the monetary policy announcement a day ago. Topline Securities Ltd said the State Bank of Pakistan kept the key interest rate unchanged in view of a projected easing in the Consumer Price Index October onwards — a trend that’s likely to continue into the second half of 2023-24. In addition, the federal government’s appro
The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) role is to help countries recover from financial crises by offering them loans, albeit with the caveat of imposing structural programmes, which is where the controversy begins. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis was a convoluted region-wide crisis. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea operated in a hot-money bubble in the 1980s and 1990s:
Things got pretty exciting for Pakistan’s freelance community as the State Bank introduced a new framework allowing them to open the Exporters’ Special Foreign Currency Account to retain their dollars. In a similar vein, Sadapay made a big splash when they announced integrating with Apple Pay and GPay, enabling freelancers to get paid directly into their wallets. The product seems to be pretty