Foreign exchange reserves of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) decreased $956 million to $7.95 billion due to external debt servicing during the week ending on Nov 4, a central bank statement said on Thursday. Major external debt repayments executed during the week include the repayment of the government’s commercial loans. Refinancing of these loans is in process, which will improve foreign exc
The World Bank and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR ) on Thursday reviewed the implementation status of various measures agreed upon for broadening the tax base and taxpayers’ facilitation under the Pakistan Raises Revenue Programme (PRRP) soft loan of $400 million. The PRRP was initiated in 2019 and aimed at “contributing to a sustainable increase in domestic revenue by broadening the tax bas
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is in Abu Dhabi to seek financial support, including through selling minority shares of state-owned companies listed on the stock market at negotiated prices. On the first day of his visit, Mr Dar met with the top management of multibillion-dollar public sector entities — like Abu Dhabi’s state holding company ADQ, the International Holding Company (IHC) and Etisalat
IN a Tedx talk I gave last year, I argued that Pakistan shouldn’t be called the Islamic Republic but rather the One Per Cent Republic. Opportunities, power and wealth here are limited to the top one per cent of the people. The rest are not provided opportunities to succeed. Pakistan’s economy thus only relies on whatever a small elite can achieve. It remains underdeveloped as it ignores the tal
THE FATF has placed Pakistan on its ‘increased monitoring list’, also known as the ‘grey list’, multiple times since 2008. Those countries whose names appear on this list commit to actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regulatory frameworks to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. In its announcement on Oct 21, the FATF st