Pakistan’s overall external debt and liabilities stood around $126.35 billion at the end of December 2022 against our annual exports of goods and services worth $40bn in FY23 that ended in June this year. Since the external debt and liabilities are more than three times our total exports, we are, by textbook definition, a heavily indebted nation. Large external debts and liabilities cannot be r
Most Pakistanis just enjoy the May Day holiday with little care for its significance. The government is probably content with their labour-friendly legislation. The wide gaps in the implementation of these somehow escape their attention. Employers possibly resent it but tolerate it. Workers, however, celebrate Labour Day as well as they can. Today again, workers will meet at multiple platforms
The crisis of finance capital would have been much worse than what is being currently witnessed but for the crutches provided by workers’ remittances which accounted for $29 billion in 2022. The cyclic crises have become more frequent and generally occur every two to three years as in the case of Pakistan, instead of once in a decade universally observed not very long ago. Remittances somewh
How many people around you have ever willingly bought an insurance policy? It can’t be a lot, at least if you exclude the Sehat card that the citizens of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab are entitled to. That’s because Pakistan has one of the worst insurance penetration rates among regional or economic peers — at just 0.91 per cent (life and general insurance combined). It’s sort of ironic because
Oil fell on Monday as concern over the economic impact of the US Federal Reserve potentially raising interest rates and weaker Chinese manufacturing data outweighed support from new Opec+ supply cuts taking effect this month. The Fed, which meets on May 2-3, is expected to increase interest rates by another 25 basis points. The US dollar rose against a basket of currencies on Monday, making oil