The financial sector saw Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s meeting with US ambassador Donald Blome in Islamabad on Wednesday as a positive development while the currency markets indicated their satisfaction with a calm day for the exchange regime. The meeting has revived hopes for a breakthrough in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for the release of $1.2 billion tranche. A statem
The government has set up a new body to frame economic policies that “ensure policy predictability, continuity and effective implementation to revive the economy”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday as he stressed the need for “creative ideas” to solve economic problems. The new forum, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), will serve as a top decision-making body to p
Equities received some respite on Tuesday from the bearish momentum after the central bank reported a surplus in the country’s current account in May. Topline Securities said the KSE-100 index commenced the trading session on a positive note and hit an intraday high of 119 points. However, the respite proved temporary with the stock market succumbing to selling pressure afterwards. Arif Habi
Novelist Mohsin Hamid was taken aback by the fact that his co-passengers on a recent connecting flight from Istanbul to Bologna, a city in northern Italy, included about 30 people from Lahore, predominantly young men going to Europe apparently as labourers. The author of acclaimed novels like The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia used this little anecdote to dr
Despite the pronouncements coming out of Islamabad that the 9th review of the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme is still a possibility, the fact of the matter is that successful completion of the review is a distant possibility. This view is reinforced by the fact that the IMF’s own executive board calendar, which shows planned meetings through June 29, does not mention Pakist