I HATE to be the bearer of bad news all the time. But circumstances don’t permit otherwise. In the last monetary policy statement of July 31, the State Bank said “inflation is likely to remain on downward path over the next 12 months”. But it is difficult to see how this will happen. There are a couple of reasons to believe why inflation may have peaked. First is what they call the “base effect
Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities surged by 29 per cent, or Rs17.332 trillion in FY23 to reach Rs77.104tr during FY23, compared to Rs59.772tr in FY22, according to the State Bank of Pakistan’s latest data released on Wednesday. However, the gross external debt of the country declined by $6 billion during the same fiscal year, reaching $124.3bn compared to $130.3bn in FY22. The SBP report
Reacting to a major increase in petroleum prices by the interim government, business leaders on Wednesday warned that the decision will cause the closure of 50 per cent of industrial units and trigger mass unemployment. They said trade and industry, which are already struggling to survive the power tariff hikes of almost Rs10 per unit, cannot bear the increase of Rs17.50 and Rs20 per litre in t
The foreign exchange reserves of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) slightly increased by $12 million to $8.055 billion during the week ended on Aug 11 against the previous trend of frequent declines since the first week of July. The SBP reserves were $4.524bn on July 7, which jumped to $8.727bn after inflows from the IMF, Saudi Arabia and UAE. However, the forex holdings of the central bank s
Recent findings from the World Resource Institute’s (WRI) ‘Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas’ have shed light on a concerning global trend. According to the updated framework, Pakistan has been classified under the ‘high’ water stress category. This categorisation is part of a broader revelation that by 2050, an estimated $70 trillion in GDP, equivalent to 31 per cent of the global GDP, will be vulnera