The agriculture and food exports jumped by 64 per cent during the first half of the current fiscal year, helping the country to narrow down its trade deficit. The official data showed the country’s total agriculture and food exports reached $3.847 billion during July-December 2023-24 against $2.345bn in the same period last year, an increase of $1.502bn in absolute terms. The overall merchan
An index on Pakistan’s dollar bonds gained 93 per cent in 2023, the best performance in emerging markets after El Salvador, reported Bloomberg on Wednesday. The agency reported that investors believe Pakistan’s dollar bonds will rally for a second year as the government is expected to secure another bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The government has recently announced ach
Domestic cotton production will remain drastically lower than projected for the crop year 2023-24 as the total output will be hardly 8.5 million bales against the initial target of 12.8m, a loss of 4.3m bales, reveals the data released by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association on Wednesday. The PCGA data up to Dec 31 shows that 8.17m bales of cotton have reached the ginning factories across t
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Wednesday approved a second increase in power tariff within a week for the consumers of K-Electric. The regulator, on a request by the Karachi-based power utility, gave the approval of Rs2.87 per unit hike, which comes as part of a quarterly tariff adjustment (QTA) from January to March 2023. The decision has been forwarded to the fede
After staging the second-best single-day rally the other day, the stock market on Tuesday faltered on profit-taking triggered by a spike in headline inflation and growing uncertainty about upcoming general elections. However, the benchmark KSE 100 index closed above the 64,000 level. Beating the government’s projection of 21pc with a big margin, the first-half inflation for FY24 surged to 28.79