Asia

India's neighbouring country, Pakistan continued to grab headlines throughout the year 2023. Whether it was an economic crisis, food crisis, mass protests, political arrests or upheaval over election dates — Pakistan saw it all in this one year. Here's a quick recap of all that happened in Pakistan in the year 2023: Economic crisisIn 2023, Pakistan saw new lows. The Pakistani rupee hit an all-time low, crossing the PKR 300 mark against the US dollar in August 2023. The country's foreign reserves with the State Bank of Pakistan (SPB) also dropped to an alarming level — at $3.1 billion in January 2023. The cash-strapped country struggled to unlock funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In a bid to secure one, the SBP hiked interest rate by 300 basis points (bps) to 20 p...

A landmark general election in India, scheduled for the summer of 2024, will see the drivers of economic growth shift midway through the year, according to Goldman Sachs Research. Overall, despite food and oil supply shocks keeping inflation elevated, growth is forecast to remain stable and resilient. For 2023, our economists expect real GDP growth to come in at 6.7% year on year, up from our earlier estimate of 6.4%. Among the 13 large economies in Goldman Sachs Research’s global outlook for 2024, India’s projected growth rate is the highest at 6.2%, with China in second at 4.8%, as of December 18. As the 2024 election approaches, “we expect consumption growth to be driven by subsidies and transfer payments,” write Goldman Sachs Research’s India economists Santanu Sengupta and Arjun V...

The schedule for Pakistan’s general elections on February 8 has been issued, hours after the Supreme Court quashed a lower court’s decision which could have delayed the much-awaited polls. The election schedule was issued on Friday night by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), within hours after the Supreme Court quashed a decision by the Lahore High Court (LHC) to suspend the appointment of officials from the bureaucracy to oversee the elections in defiance of the apex court’s orders. The LHC’s verdict was issued on a petition filed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) — the same party that had called for timely polls in a plea filed in the Supreme Court. Due to the LHC’s order, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Chief Election Commissio...