Despite mounting political tensions and an unexpected delay in the approval of the Staff-Level Agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund in July for a new $7 billion Extended Fund Facility, the falling T-bill yields and robust corporate results helped the stock market close the outgoing week in green territory. The non-inclusion of Pakistan in the agenda of the IMF’s Executive Boar
Expecting the stability of a developed market and growth rates of a developing market is unreasonable; it is a high risk, high return scenario,” says Unilever’s Chairman and CEO Amir Paracha in an interview with Dawn. Companies that withdraw during challenging periods often miss out on substantial opportunities, Mr Paracha argues, citing examples of international banks and foreign pharmaceutica
The conversation around financial inclusion is still new in Pakistan’s mainstream. But within the self-indulgent policy circle, it’s quite a hot topic — one that gets you conference speaker slots and juicy grants from foreign donors. Unfortunately, it continues to be discussed in very broad terms, at least for the most part, where the lens is typically limited to the national aggregates. For
The conversation around financial inclusion is still new in Pakistan’s mainstream. But within the self-indulgent policy circle, it’s quite a hot topic — one that gets you conference speaker slots and juicy grants from foreign donors. Unfortunately, it continues to be discussed in very broad terms, at least for the most part, where the lens is typically limited to the national aggregates. For
The current exercise by the federal government to formulate a five-year plan is seen by many as somewhat misplaced in view of the expected three-year top-priority International Monetary Fund (IMF) stabilisation programme. In the past, as well, the 23 bailouts by the Fund and its reforms agenda took precedence over implementations of five-year plans; to quote an analyst, “Much of the five-year p