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| July 07, 2008 | Monday | Rajab 3, 1429 |
Business seeks level playing field
 THE investors are showing clear signs of nervousness. The industry, however, with higher stakes in the economy, seems ready to bend backwards to adjust and strive with vigour for a better tomorrow....
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Rejuvenating a saving and investment culture
 After WW-II, the Japanese Emperor commanded his countrymen to pick up their tools to fight an economic battle and prove their superiority. By late 1970s this war-ravaged country became the world’s...
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Is construction boom losing momentum?
 Is the construction boom - one of the major drivers of rapid growth in both industrial and service sectors during the last five years and a big provider of unskilled to...
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Farm mechanisation and food security
 GREEN Revolution has been a perennial dream with successive governments, and the current government is no exception. It starts off with all kinds of right noises for agriculture, but, unfortunately, a positive outcome remains a distant dream....
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Biofuels: challenges and opportunities
BIOFUEL can be defined as solid, liquid, or gas fuel consisting of or derived from biomass. It is a material derived from organisms such as plants, animals and their by-products....
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Providing production loans to farmers
AGRICULTURE plays a central role in the economies of developing countries. In Pakistan this sector is the driving force behind growth. It employs 48 per cent of the total work force,...
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Subsidy and price stability
The World Bank wants Pakistan to do away with its varied subsidies. Islamabad agrees to that in principle but would like to phase out the subsidies to the barest minimum over a longer period than the foreign donors would like....
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Facts about chemical agriculture
 THE exciting part about soft technologies is that they keep on changing. So what is true for one year may not be true for another year....
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Fuel for electric power
 It does not need hindsight to come to the conclusion that it was a colossal failure of public policy during the period when President Pervez Musharraf was in charge of the country to plan for increase in the supply of electricity....
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NWFP’s financial worries
 A SURGING wheat subsidy, the soaring cost of security (as military operation picks up in tribal belt close to Peshawar) and increased wage bill are the major financial worries, the NWFP government has to tackle in the current financial year....
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World commodities
Oil:In the London market, the price of oil set a record high of above $146 a barrel on July 3, owing to falling reserve of US crude, simmering tensions over Iran and ...
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Public-private partnership: a contractual framework
 Public-private partnerships are a worldwide phenomenon and have become more widespread over the last decade, fuelled by insufficient public investments in infrastructure due to growing pressures on government budgets and a general concern about inefficient public service provisions by the state....
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Confronting one crisis after another
 FOR the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, tottering from one crisis to another over the past few weeks, the peak monsoon month of July has heralded bucketfuls of bad news, both on the political and economic fronts....
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Riba and inflation
 The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has recently issued instructions/guidance to Islamic banks and dedicated bank branches offering Shariah-compliant products. In the guidelines, various products have been divided into three modes i.e....
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New budget to fuel inflation
 A disturbing feature of the budget 2008-09 is the double-digit target of 12 per cent set for inflation. Although inflation has emerged as a risk to the economy since 2004-05, such...
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Productivity in the service sector
 Boosting productivity has been considered as a major economic challenge for the policy makers and the private sector alike. Given that the country suffers certainly on the productivity front, when compared...
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Options for reducing trade deficit
 “Unless we add a good number of value added items of decent quality and diverse products to our export profile, there is no way exports can take a quantum leap,’’ a...
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A growing market for ‘Islamic’ goods
 Religion and commerce can sometimes blend together innovatively and go a long way to create a market of products which can ensure not only good returns but also fulfil a religious duty....
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Worsening housing slump
 The British economy is about to enter a phase of technical recession. And the prospect of a further rise in inflation towards five per cent later this year clearly reduces the...
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Record fall in trading on currency volatility, security situation
 THE single session trading volume on the stock market last week hit its all-time low at 5.349 million shares beating its early week’s 1.117m shares as investors kept to sidelines awaiting some positive news on the corporate sector....
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Rupee still vulnerable vs dollar
 The recent political uncertainty, coupled with the continuing rise in oil prices in the international market had made the rupee vulnerable against the dollar in the money market during the last fiscal year 2007-08....
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No offers received for six-month T-bills
 On July 2, the State Bank of Pakistan sold Treasury Bills worth Rs76.8bn. The SBP sold only Rs1.989bn worth of 12 month T-bills, no offers were received for 6 month T-bills, while the balance was made up of 3 month T-bills....
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Commodity prices rise on petroleum rates hike
 AFTER remaining stable around previous levels during the last couple of weeks, prices of essential commodities rose on the Karachi wholesale markets last week followed by reports of short supply apparently due to increase in petroleum prices....
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