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Stakeholders asked to submit budget proposals

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has begun inviting tax proposals from all stakeholders to enhance the formulation process and reduce backend procedural burdens for Budget 2025-26. The FBR has set Jan 31 as the deadline for rec­e­iving budget proposals, advancing its plan to engage all stakeholders in the budget process. In another letter, the commerce ministry has requested tariff-related

Govt raises Rs425bn, slashes T-bill yields

The government on Wednesday slas­hed the returns on treasury bills by up to 49 basis points and raised much below the staggering amount of bids, reflecting another possibility of an interest rate cut. The government raised Rs424.15 billion through the T-bill auction against a target of Rs250bn. The investors looked eager to park their surplus liquidity in the risk-free government papers as the

Four Pakistani banks in S&P’s Asia-Pacific top 10 list

Four Pakistani banks ranked as the best among the top 10 Asia Pacific lenders in 2024, reported S&P Global Intelligence on Wednesday. “Pakistani banks dominated a ranking of Asia-Pacific lenders with the best-performing stocks in 2024, as several banks based in the region’s developing economies performed better on the metric of total returns than those in traditional powerhouse nations,” said t

Development spending falls off cliff in July-Dec

The Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) has flattened to just Rs148 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year against revised allocation of Rs1.1 trillion amid substantial revenue shortfalls and the government’s tight control over disbursements to meet requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to half-yearly (July-December 2024) data released by the Mini

After a decade, govt wakes up to market Gwadar port

The commercialisation of Gwadar Port, built more than a decade ago, remains a non-starter, turning the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure facility into a white elephant instead of becoming a transhipment hub. This was the gist of a high-level meeting on the operationalisation of Gwadar Port called on the directives of the prime minister and presided over by Planning and Dev­elopment Minister A