Category: Highlights

Russia plans to build its first batch of icebreakers that are powered by liquified natural gas, a top official said on Friday, returning to an idea that was put on hold. Russia has the world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. It is building up that fleet, hoping to develop the Northern Sea Route across its northern flank into an international shipping lane as climate change melts the ice. “We are now returning to this topic (building LNG-powered icebreakers). I think that by the end of the year we will decide…

Read More

The U.S. UK and other countries want world governments to commit to a phaseout of the use and financing of coal-fired power generation, but officials who met at the G20 Environment Ministers Meeting summit in Naples, Italy, this past week ended their talks without an agreement on the future of the fuel. The topic will come up again at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland, later this year. The talks in Italy, which ended July 23, showed the difficulty among developed nations…

Read More

Pakistan’s real effective exchange rate (REER) – the country’s cost of international trade – improved to 99.85 points on the index in June, making exports viable and imports expensive mainly due to depreciation in rupee against the basket of major trading partners’ currencies. The real effective exchange rate below 100 means the country’s exports remain competitive and import expensive. The situation reverses when REER stands above 100 on the index, it was learnt. “The improvement in real effective exchange rate would encourage exports from Pakistan and discourage unnecessary imports into…

Read More

The current account deficit (CAD) may pose a challenge to rupee stability in the coming days, despite record inflows of export receipts and workers’ remittances. The current account posted an unexpected $1.64 billion in June 2021. The monthly current account deficit deteriorated the full-year balance of payment. Analysts at Topline Research said the current account deterioration in June 2021 was largely due to an increase in the imports of goods, which recorded a rise of 27 percent MoM, or $1.363 billion, to clock-in at $6.322 billion. After the higher deficit…

Read More

Vice President of Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Ahmad Jawad has called upon the economic managers to intervene as once again the cost of one dollar is now equal to Rs162 despite remittances being good, the Current Account has been in surplus or close to it, and foreign exchange reserves are also at a record high. “With devaluation, there is inflation. When there is inflation, your disposable income vanishes, which affects consumption behaviour and purchasing power.” Talking at a presser, Jawad said we must understand that depreciation of rupee means a…

Read More