Category: Recent Post

The loan programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended in January remains in limbo as Pakistan’s public debt went past 87 per cent of GDP at the end of 2019-20, up from about 72pc of GDP at the end of 2017-18. Pakistan direly needs the IMF support to maintain healthy foreign inflows from bilateral and multilateral lenders to keep servicing over $78 billion foreign public debt. While the circular debt is emerging as one of the key risks to Pakistan’s financial and economic stability, a road map for its…

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Pakistan’s energy crisis resulting from expensive fuel sources, chronic natural gas and electricity shortages, highly inefficient distribution system, culture of non-payment of bills, theft, circular debt, and inadequate and aged transmission and distribution systems – has played a role in the country’s laggard economic growth. But while the country’s power sector woes are much talked about, far less is debated about the natural gas sector despite it mirroring all the ills of power sector. For example, distribution losses in the Power Sector are approximately 18% (equivalent to Rs. 45 Billion…

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KARACHI: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) has lamented frequent increase in the energy prices and said it is making Pakistani products uncompetitive in the international market, a statement said on Saturday. “Pakistan is losing the international markets to China, India and even Bangladesh,” FPCCI President Mian Anjum Nisar said. Although the oil prices were linked with the international prices, the benefit of decline in oil prices had not been passed on to the consumers for quite a long time, he added. According to Consumer Price…

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ISLAMABAD: The government has reportedly decided to convert additional debt of Rs 80 billion of Power Holding Limited (PHL) into public debt as per agreements with the international financial institutions (IFI), well informed sources told Business Recorder. For this purpose, Finance Ministry will submit a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet shortly. The government has already converted PHL’s debts of Rs 136 billion into public debt in accordance with an understanding with IFIs; and has already agreed to convert power sector debts existing on PHL books…

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ISLAMABAD: A few years ago, Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) had been a star performer at the Pakistan stock market. However, in recent years the company has lost much of its market value and its performance has remained lacklustre. In 2014, OGDC’s share price stood above $2 but in the recent past the share value was hovering around $0.60. Based on the outstanding 4.3 billion shares, the company’s valuation has gone down by over $6 billion. For decades, OGDC – a big oil and gas exploration company – had…

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