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| June 16, 2008 | Monday | Jamadi-us-Sani 11, 1429 |
Hopes rekindled
 The incentive and subsidy package for the agriculture sector proposed in the budget 2008-09 is expected to save the growers billions of rupees in input costs and boost farm output, say farmers from Punjab....
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A budget in midst of political turmoil
 This year’s budget, presented in the midst of political uncertainty, especially in the shadow of the lawyers-led long march, as well as in the absence of a unified visionary leadership and...
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How to overcome economic crises
This is a good time for Pakistan’s new rulers to take some decisions that will not only heal the economy but also change some of its structures....
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Weak response to farming needs
 THE budget 2008-09 is a grim reminder of our neglect of the agriculture sector. The sheer fluctuation of figures of growth per annum during the last two decades show the kind...
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Cotton sowing in doldrums
 COTTON sowing in southern Punjab is facing multiple problems and is still stuck to around eight per cent mark even in mid-May. The ideal sowing time, which is May for the...
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Increasing returns on agriculture
Pakistan’s agriculture is in dire straits and although the growth rates indicate a robust economy that is far from the facts that have been given in the Economic Survey....
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Wheat hoarding on the rise
 NOW it is more than manifest that profiteers are gradually taking over –– much of it if not wholly –– the sale, supply and price-fixing of staple commodities at a time when the food crisis is aggravating fast....
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Government to borrow from state enterprises
 The Finance Minister, Syed Naveed Qamar, has said that government borrowings from the State Bank have reached an “unacceptable level” and are a major source of inflationary pressures....
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No incentive for industrialisation
 The business and trade is unhappy over the two years’ exemption from capital gains tax on shares as “it gives a signal that nobody should suffer pains of industrialisation or take...
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World economies
The world economy’s centre of gravity is shifting from the US towards China. The leading developed nations will grow by 3.6 per cent, predicts the IMF, but emerging and developing....
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The bewildered textile industry
 THE budgetary proposals for the next financial year related to manufacturing in general and textiles in particular appear to have left the struggling textile industry pretty bewildered....
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Unfair taxation regime
 The Finance Bill 2008 unveiled in the parliament on June 11 by the PPP minister, Mr Naveed Qamar, has again proved that politicians cannot prevail over the bureaucrats sitting in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)....
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Extended exemption from capital gains tax
 WITH reference to Mr Yousuf Nazar’s article, ‘Making peace with powerful brokers’ published in the Economic & Business Review on Monday, June 9, the issue of imposition of capital gains tax...
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Foreigners buy stakes in Indian drug firms
 INTERNAT IONAL drug makers have for years been uncomfortable while dealing with India. Though multinational pharma majors had a strong presence in the country, they were always wary of the unregulated...
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Relief for the poorest of the poor
 The Rs2 trillion budget 2008-09 will be remembered for a desperate attempt to reduce fiscal deficits through measures that are likely to aggravate the same variables that the budget is ostensibly trying to control....
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A meek shift in policies
 Family-dominated and subsidy-addicted businesses that have diversified towards trading from core industrial activity in recent years found Rs2 trillion budget 2009 proposals, presented in the national assembly on Wednesday, harsh offering...
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Regional markets to gain on oil price surge
 One has heard a lot about setting a thief to catch a thief but never about setting inflation to catch inflation. But that is exactly what the UK has decided to do....
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Market turns sluggish on lawyers’ long march
 THE share market turned extremely sluggish at the fag-end of the last week as rumours about the president in the backdrop of lawyers’ long march and attack by Nato forces inside...
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Rupee up against dollar
 The rupee, after remaining stable for more than four years, significantly lost its value against the dollar during the first eleven months of the current fiscal year....
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Banks’ assets higher
 On June 9, the State Bank of Pakistan mopped up Rs15.4 billion from the banking system through an Open Market Operation....
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Essentials’ prices decline on lower demand
 THE post-budget week on the Karachi wholesale commodity markets witnessed a major price change on the lower side on the essentials’ counter in the absence of demand from general consumers....
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