THE news is not all bad, though the outlook remains gloomy and will take at least a year to rectify. The stabilisation phase of economic management is drawing to a close. The government is making the right moves with plans for a debt buyback to retire a large amount of maturing Treasury bills, although one hopes this won’t simply be swapped with one debt instrument or another. The sheer size of
DESIGNED to be the international lender of last resort and help countries facing short-run balance-of-payments distress, the IMF has a rich history of being the quack physician that killed the patient. Driven by myopic market fundamentalism and riddled with policy missteps, its advice and actions have too often in the past proven to be detrimental to the long-run interests of its borrowers, whe
He made the announcement during a joint media conference with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif following their bilateral meeting, where both leaders discussed opportunities to enhance cooperation in key areas such as trade, investment, agriculture, tourism, education and defence. “As a result of our discussions, Malaysia has agreed in principle to import 100,000 tonnes of halal meat and basmati ri
A local pharmaceutical company has reached an agreement with an American company for the manufacturing of HIV drugs. According to a notice issued to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday, Ferozsons Laboratories Ltd (Ferozsons) has entered into a non-exclusive voluntary licence agreement with Gilead Sciences Ireland UC, a US-based biopharmaceutical company for the manufacture and sale o
Services exports shrank year-on-year by 6.51 per cent to $619.73 million in August, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. The exports contracted following six consecutive months of increase driven by a surge in information technology. The services export posted a negative growth of 2.08pc on a month-on-month basis. In rupee terms, exports also recorded a negative growth of 11.3