After much dilly-dallying, Pakistan has made its first purchase of Russian crude oil — at a “discounted” price. With Russia looking for new outlets for its crude oils and Pakistan looking for cheaper crude to overcome its acute balance of payments crisis, the deal serves both countries well. With a multipolar world in the making, and Pakistan’s traditional allies from China, Iran, Türkiye and e
Forex-starved Pakistan earned $2.6 billion last fiscal year through exports of information and communication technology (ICT) services. And within ten months of this year, ICT exports fetched $2.1bn, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Every dollar counts for Pakistan. ICT exports that are part of overall services exports are an important source of forex earnings. They can potentiall
Credit cards have failed to gain currency in Pakistan as they hold a meagre 4 per cent share in the overall card payment system due to the high-interest rates banks charge to users, mainly dominated by males. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), in its third quarterly (January-March) review of Payment Systems released on Monday, stated with 37.1 million debit cards are accounting for 76.7pc of the
The government has a “strategic plan” to promote Islamic finance, but banks and other financial institutions should not exploit the situation in the name of “Sharia compliance”. “We have a financial inclusion strategy that covers all the components needed to create Islamic financing, but the price has to be fair and competitive so that the first target of having Islamic finance products to rais
Pakistan’s international bonds continue to trade at a distressed level despite forceful statements by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar about the unlikelihood of a sovereign default. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the interest rate on the dollar debt issued by Pakistan is hovering between 30 and 40 percentage points above the US treasury bond of comparable duration. For context, the gap w