Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has deferred a decision on allowing the export of sugar due to contradictory claims of surplus stocks, which according to the government reported only 114,000 metric tonnes compared to the sugar industry’s estimates of 1.5 million tonnes. The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA)’s claim about surplus sugar stocks was over 1200% higher than the estimates of the M
The federal government, on Monday, notified new fiscal rules to reduce its debt servicing cost by gradually tapping into trillions of rupees of public money that ministries and departments have parked in commercial banks. The Ministry of Finance issued new Cash Management and Treasury Single Account Rules in order to capture the details and money parked in the non-interest private bank accounts
After briefly hitting a new all-time high above the 73,000 level in early trading on Monday, the stock market failed to extend an overnight bull run and closed in the red amid uncertainty about a rate cut ahead of the monetary policy announcement. Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said the market witnessed an across-the-board selling spree on expectations for prudent SBP monetary policy w
Propelled by a strong post-pandemic recovery in the US, sticky inflation, and geopolitical tensions, a surging dollar has battered almost every Asian currency. The changing expectations that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) might delay its anticipated rate cuts in the wake of stronger March inflation numbers and lingering conflict in the Middle East are causing home currencies to tumble across Asia an
The country’s merchandise trade deficit with the nine regional countries widened by 17.92 per cent to $6.193 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year compared to $5.252bn in the same period last year. An increase in imports from China and India during the period under review drove the trade deficit. According to data compiled by the State Bank of Pakistan, exports to regio