Tycoons, aware of challenges and Prime Minister Shehbaz’s government’s weakness, are not hopeful. The volatile market is desperate for positive signals. The people, however, expected relief in an election-year budget. To avoid higher levies on their income/profit, bankers, brokers and barons are lobbying hard, approaching heavyweights in the power corridors. The currency dealers, commodity trad
With a positive growth rate, Pakistan’s economy has somehow managed to skirt a recession during the ongoing fiscal year, even if the GDP growth has fallen flat to less than 0.3 per cent — the slowest increase in domestic output in four years — from 6.1pc a year ago. Yet it also underlines that the economy is suffering long-term effects from the crises caused by the balance of payments vulnerabi
Maritime Affairs Minister Faisal Sabzwari has said an agreement for a $500 million investment from the Gulf countries is being finalised. In this regard, an intergovernmental agreement policy would be submitted to the law ministry on Monday, which if approved, would pave the way for direct foreign investment as per the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Addressing the m
The game of chickens in the political arena can lead to economic malaise; the United States is on the verge of it. The deadlock between President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy has amplified the severity of the question, “Is the US really going towards a default? This question, even its imagination, is enough to send chills down the spine, for the aftermaths of the ‘unlikely’ US default is going
Societies leaning towards capitalism have small governments that provide essential public goods to the people, formulate policy and leave the rest to the imagination and executing capabilities of the private sector. Governments in most developing countries, on the other hand, continue to be large. Investment in these countries is low, and the loss in the investment share of the GDP is either pi