The rural areas of Pakistan are fast heading towards a larger-than-ever unemployment crisis, driven by a complex interplay of several factors, including rapid mechanisation. Given Pakistan’s historical reliance on traditional agricultural practices, its agriculture sector has lagged in mechanisation. However, recent years have witnessed significant investments in agricultural machinery by large
A major shift in the global electric vehicles (EV) market is underway, led by cheaper Chinese electric cars equipped with smart tech features. China already accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the global EV market share, and Bloomberg projects world sales to surge 21pc to 16.7 million units in 2024 — one out of every five cars sold globally last year was an EV. Chinese automakers have not only d
In eight months and one week of this fiscal year — between July 1, 2023, and March 8, 2024 — the federal government’s budgetary borrowings from commercial banks more than doubled to about Rs4.2 trillion from Rs2.01tr. Meanwhile, the private sector’s net borrowings slumped to Rs73 billion from Rs246bn. Want to know more about why banks and bankers generally remain happy with the government and v
Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said PIA flights to the UK will resume “in weeks, not months”, and that he took up the matter of banned flights of the national carrier with British government officials here over the weekend. Mr Dar made this announcement during a brief visit to London on his return from Brussels, where he attended the First Nuclear Energy Summit. In London, Mr Dar met And
Just before the end of its tenure, the caretaker government allowed a cost escalation of about 30pc to “ongoing contracts” of hundreds of development projects, financed under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the federal government. The country’s large development portfolio has always been subject to time and cost overruns, leading to repeated revisions in financial costs, besid