Asia

 December 23, 2022 Pakistan is on a spending spree, with economy in shambles and people in dire straits. The proverbial ostrich finds its parallel in the banana nation and buries its head in sands, in denial of the existence of painful realities. However, the extravagant nature of expenditure is not directed towards welfare, but for glossing over the counts it does not fare well. It leaves no stones unturned in sustaining the make-believe world of normalcy, even as most of its citizens have hardly any access to square meals. It remains a mystery that how a cash-strapped Pakistan manages to fund its obsession with Kashmir and other unproductive ventures, while continuing to barrel down the negative growth track and poised for smashing into bankruptcy. A close look in its s...

The delayed visit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Monitoring Mission to conduct the 9th review of the ongoing Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Progarmme is increasing Pakistan’s balance of payments difficulties on a daily basis.  The global capital market - where Islamabad can sell bonds - has now closed its doors as all its globally traded bonds are currently selling at steep discounts. Pakistan’s forex reserves fell to USD 6.7 billion, which could just cover four to five weeks worth of imports. With this, Islamabad is facing the real ‘currency crisis’. Amid concerns of Islamabad’s credibility, immediate needs are to import 2.5 million tonnes of wheat, 7 million bales of cotton, USD 6 billion worth of crude oil, USD 3 billion worth of machinery, USD 3 billion worth of LNG pl...

Pakistan has come up with Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Bill, 2022 which is now mired in controversies. The stated objective of the Bill is to provide for the promotion and protection of certain “qualified foreign investments” which are expedient and in the national interest to bring in large-scale foreign investments of USD 500 million or more. Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif told the Assembly that with the passage of the Bill, Baluchistan would reap the maximum benefit in the RekoDiq project by receiving around 35 to 40 billion dollars in thirty years.The immediate trigger for the passage of the Bill came due to the RekoDiq dispute. The RekoDiq open-pit mine is located in the Chagai district of Baluchistan and is one of the largest copper and gold reserves in the world with...

Facing two-way pressure from the European Union (EU) and domestic export lobby, Pakistan seems to be in the midst of an image makeover exercise to save its GSP plus status. Pakistan immensely gains from zero import duty on 66% of the tariff lines which has boosted its textile, leather, sports and surgical goods sectors. Owing to the scheme, Pak exports to EU increased substantially from €3.56 billion in 2013 to €6.64 billion in 2021. However, the benefits accruing to Pakistan since 2014 in the form of concessions for exports are subjected to biennial reviews by EU on various parameters. The main emphasis of these reviews is to check the progress of Pakistan’s institutions including businesses in the areas of human rights, labor rights and climate change.  Till now, three such revi...

LAHORE: Speaking to the media after an event at Punjab University’s (PU) New Campus here on Friday, Mehmood Bhatti poured his heart out, saying he did not want to, but he was seriously thinking of shifting his charity and philanthropic work to countries like Vietnam and Cambodia as in his own country he was implicated in false and fabricated cases. He said he had taken a lawyer to court for allegedly transferring a piece of land into his and his wife’s names. He went on to say that he had purchased the land in the provincial capital of Lahore to establish an orphanage. The fashion czar said that overseas Pakistanis wanted to invest in Pakistan. Nonetheless, the fear of becoming victims of fraud and subsequent mistreatment by state institutions was a huge deterrent. He said the qabza ma...

LAHORE: Addressing the JI workers at Mansoorah on Friday, he said the government must issue directions to the banks to take back their appeals against the Federal Shariat Court’s decision against interest. Despite the government’s announcement, he said, 14 appeals were yet to be withdrawn, creating an impression that the rulers were reluctant to fulfill their commitment. Haq said the interest-based economy was a violation of the Constitution and added that Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had issued clear directions to introduce Islamic model of economy while inaugurating the State Bank of Pakistan. Seven decades had passed, yet the rulers had not taken a single step in this direction, he lamented. The JI chief demanded the government introduce the Riba amnesty scheme and buil...

The Chinese communist party in their quest to intimidate large scale businesses and their founders, have begun their long-awaited crackdown on big businesses that refused to endorse the Party’s repressive policies. The recent disappearance of one of the richest men in the world, Jack Ma, is telling of the CCP’s tactics of intimidation through coercive means. This has invariably caused an environment of fear amongst other business owner that had previously raised similar concerns. Valued as one of the largest business groups in the world before the prosecution of Jack Ma, the Ant group was on its way of seeking an IPO of $34 billion in 2020 before it was abruptly stalled by regulators at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. The sudden halting of the IPO was seen as an indication o...

Hong Kong: Beijing announced the previous week that it would shorten the quarantine periods despite a surge in Covid cases across the manufacturing hub Guangzhou, resulting in the region's lockdown. Also Read Notably, a two-month lockdown of Shanghai's 25 million residents earlier this year and restrictions that dented production at the world's largest iPhone plant in central Zhengzhou city this month underscore China's zeal to quash outbreaks at almost any cost, Channel News Asia reported. "How the government will handle the surge of cases there could be a litmus test for the future of China's zero-COVID policy," Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the US-based Council of Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter, according to Channel News Asia. Notably, China has be...

A member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China has flagged the urgent need to get China’s economy back on track. Photo: Bloomberg China “urgently” needs to get its economy back on track to see it grow by at least 5 per cent next year, according to government advisers who appear to be increasingly concerned amid a property market crisis and Beijing’s strict zero-Covid policy. The world’s second-largest economy has failed to reach its growth potential since Covid-19 took hold nearly three years ago, and “this situation cannot continue”, said Liu Shijin, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China. “The urgent priority now is to get the macro economy back on a normal track,” Liu said, speaking on Friday at the 13th Caixin Summit i...

“I’ll run out of money soon if there’s no new investment,” said the founder, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. “It is not as easy as two years ago, when [former US president Donald] Trump first started to impose sanctions on the industry and largely hyped up the semiconductor investment circle in China,” he told the South China Morning Post. The start-up founder is just one of many Chinese chip entrepreneurs trying to find shelter from the storm that has hit the country’s chip industry. The galvanisation of the industry that came in the face of earlier US sanctions has turned to desperation after Washington ratcheted up restrictions. Now, all Chinese chip companies are bracing for a tough year ahead. In 2020, when Washington blacklisted dozens of Chin...