Year: 2020

Is Economy Ready To Take Off?

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KARACHI: Pakistan’s economy is now ready to take off. With the current account in surplus and the rupee appreciating, two things have become clear. First, imported inflation will now start receding. And second, the decline in the cost of external debt repayments will help the government to keep fiscal imbalance in check. That, in turn, will also reduce the need to borrow excessively from banks, creating room for higher lending by banks to the private sector. Low interest rates – along with central bank’s post-pandemic concessionary loaning schemes – will…

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A Project Junkyard

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Like other developing countries, Pakistan has been a consistent recipient of foreign loans and assistance in the form of project and programme loans and grants for social and economic development objectives through budgetary and balance-of-payments support. Programme loans are generally sought for achieving broad development and economic objectives like reforms while project loans are secured for specific projects and services when domestic resources are insufficient. However, such resources are helpful only when they are effectively utilised. Otherwise, they lead to debt accumulation and higher servicing cost ie a debt trap.…

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Govt to cut 5.5pc WHT to zero, 17pc GST to 10pc to ensure cheap LPG

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The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is making its mind to scale down the prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by doing away with the withholding tax (WHT) of 5.5 percent on its import, and slashing general sales tax (GST) of 17pc to 10pc on domestic production. And more importantly, 3 percent sales tax (ST) on LPG production will also be turned zero, reveals an official document on LPG policy, available with The News. The Council of Common Interests (CCI), which meets on Nov 11, may take up the proposed LPG…

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TAPI gas pipeline to bring economic prosperity to Pakistan

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urkmenistan Ambassador to Pakistan Atadjan Movlamov on Sunday announced that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline is at the stage of practical implementation, adding that the project is certain to be a game changer for Pakistan’s economic prosperity. He stated this while meeting with representatives of the (EJAF) Economic Journalist Association Forum in Islamabad.  Movlamov said that a 1,840km long pipeline transporting natural gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be constructed by the state-owned gas companies under the TAPI project. “We have been finalising agreements with the Pakistani…

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E&P companies make 90 discoveries

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Exploration and Production (E&P) companies have made around 90 oil and gas discoveries in different parts of the country during the last six years. The companies found 12, 24, 17, 22, 12 and 3 hydrocarbon deposits in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively, out of which 10 were discovered in different parts of Punjab, 69 in Sindh, eight in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and three in Balochistan, according to an official document available with APP. The E&P companies, during first two years of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, made 26…

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