THE inevitable is happening. Having raised everyone’s hopes of some sort of massive dollar inflow under the so-called Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), the government is now stealthily trying to walk some of those expectations back. Members of the business community were told “$25 billion are there for the taking” at a meeting. But now we are finding out that what looked like $25b
President Arif Alvi has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to restore multi-billion inadmissible sales tax refunds of over Rs12 billion through benami transactions during the tax year 2018-2022. The president directed FBR to reopen the investigation into M/s Millat Tractors Ltd (MTL), the company is under scrutiny for allegedly obtaining an inadmissible sales tax refund. This move by
The government on Wednesday slashed the cut-off yields on treasury bills and raised less than the auction target even lower than the maturing debt. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reported that the returns on T-bills have been reduced by up to 50 basis points indicating the future interest rate trend. It was also observed that unlike the previous trend, the highest bids were received for 12
Large-scale manufacturing (LSM) expanded for the second consecutive month in September, with year-on-year growth of 1.01 per cent, reversing a trend of 14 months of contraction, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics showed on Wednesday. The LSM expansion can be attributed mostly to a government move to make it easier to open letters of credit (LCs) after being restricted to a few c
The rupee depreciated for the 17th consecutive session on Wednesday against the dollar in the interbank market. The currency market players believe that the dollar will continue dominating the local currency in the coming days. The State Bank of Pakistan reported that the greenback appreciated by 27 paise to close at Rs288.14. Currency dealers said there was no change in the market sentiment