News

Systemic risk lurks ahead, says Habib Bank CEO

The banking sector will be exposed to a “systemic risk” should the prevailing uncertainty continue for another few months, Habib Bank Ltd CEO Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Friday. Speaking at a summit on financial crimes, the CEO of the largest commercial bank warned the participants about a “big blow to the economy” if the stakeholders didn’t make the right decisions swiftly. “Even the smalles

When omelettes become too expensive

Eggs for breakfast are pretty universal. Be it the tycoons cocooned behind electric fences and guards in fortresses in Defence or the lower-middle income chap who has a quick bite in the morning before setting off on his two-wheeler, omelettes are a fairly ubiquitous breakfast. A quick informal poll reveals that the most common omelette type is one with two eggs, some onion, and a tomato. Using

CORPORATE WINDOW: Lenders’ support and resistance

After securing a $4 billion lifeline from friendly Arab countries, the government will be prioritising the revival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme to ensure that other multilateral entities keep the pipeline flowing amid unending political uncertainty. Walking on a tightrope, the multi-party coalition appears to be struggling to take further inflationary measures ahead of loomin

Agriculture: Correcting the wheat market

For the last few decades, Pakistan’s agriculture sector has become the happiest hunting ground for crises. Going from one crisis to the next, the entire sector is operating in a firefighting mode and that too without any policy or regulatory effort on the part of the government, allowing the market to determine and extract its windfall. The latest example is of fertiliser. In the last few years

US Treasury Secretary warns of default risk by early June

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that the United States will likely hit the $31.4 trillion statutory debt limit on Jan 19, forcing the Treasury to launch extraordinary cash management measures that can likely prevent default until early June. “Once the limit is reached, Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaultin