Higher exchange rates attracted extensive dollar selling especially from exporters which enabled the rupee to recover Rs9.24 against the greenback during the last 11 days. The US currency peaked at an all-time high at Rs276.58 on Feb 3 against the rupee mainly due to extreme volatility in exchange rates stemming from the government’s attempt to manage the exchange parity artificially low which
The latest increase in gas prices seems to have pitched the industrialists of Punjab against those of Sindh. Newspaper ads by the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association-North demand that the government do away with different gas rates for the export-oriented industrial units of Punjab and Sindh by adopting a uniform price of $7 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu). After the latest hike,
Despite its attempt to expedite passage of fiscal measures mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government was forced to head to parliament on Tuesday after President Arif Alvi “advised” Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to take parliament into confidence over the Rs170 billion in new taxes that are being levied. Soon after the president’s ‘refusal’, a cabinet meeting was conve
The Fitch Ratings agency on Tuesday downgraded Pakistan’s long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to ‘CCC-’, from ‘CCC+’ due to worsening liquidity, political volatility and decline of foreign-exchange reserves to critically low levels. A CCC minus rating denotes a very high level of default risk. One of the three major global rating agencies, Fitch said it did not typically assi
Mixed signals on the economic front resulted in share prices oscillating within a short range on Monday. Arif Habib Ltd said the index of representative shares opened on the lower side while extending losses from the last session of the preceding week. But investors’ sentiments quickly changed as news reports hinted at the early disbursement of next IMF tranche of $1.2bn. Share prices soon r