If one looks at the composition of annual budget, one point is very clear that revenue collection is barely enough to meet the current expenditure. Often, amounts are borrowed to meet the shortfall and almost the entire developmental expenditures are financed through aid, grants and softer loans acquired from multilateral financial institutions. The budget for next financial year is not likely to be very different from the previous budgets. …

  Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) is the largest corporate entity owned by the government with production capacity of 5 million tons. Privatization of PSM was initiated under the reign of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, which was met with controversy. The Supreme Court held the privatization effort as defined process and procedures were not followed. Sale of the country’s largest industrial unit went down the drain whereas the matter was …

  The banking sector through CY13 faced tough challenges with external factors including law and order situation, political uncertainty, strikes causing closure of bank branches in distressed areas to name a few. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) require banks to have minimum capital of Rs10 billion by December 2014, which will be a challenge for banks below the required threshold forcing another round of mergers and acquisitions review. The …

  The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has taken various measures to manage inflation and interest rate. In September 2013, SBP linked minimum rate of return on average balances held in saving deposits with the floor of the interest rate corridor, which means return on saving deposits cannot be more than 50 bps lower than the floor of the interest rate corridor, which is currently at 7.5 percent. This measure …

  Presently, the cost of operating a business in Pakistan is considerably high because of incompetent and unfriendly socio-economic environment. Consequently, Pakistani businesses are at a comparative demerit in regards of operating costs against their competitors in the region. In spite of continuous representations to the government strategy adepts and top executives, no worthwhile attempt has been made towards declining the high cost of doing business in the country. The …

  Adoption of boys was a general practice in the affluent class in ancient Rome. For families with no male at all, adoption was the only solution. Adoption was the most common way of acceding to the throne without use of force. In ancient Rome it was an expensive agreement for the childless family and quality had to be ensured. Adoption was agreed between families by the mother giving the …

  Recently released data by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) about deposits, investments and advances of commercial banks for the month of April’14 can be termed a little disappointing when compared with March’14. Deposits remained pegged at Rs7.6 trillion, advances were recorded at Rs4.1 trillion at month investments slid by 1%MoM to Rs4.5 trillion, mainly because of commencement of trading of government securities at Karachi Stock Exchange and failure of …

  Govt achieves another landmark of signing $1.6bn deal with China The present PML-N government achieved another landmark, as a historic agreement was signed for first-ever Metro Train Project in Pakistan. Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif signed the agreement on behalf of the Pakistan government, while Chairman National Development and Reform Commission China, Xu-Shaoshi signed the document on behalf of China for Metro Train Project. Under the agreement, Orange …

  Pakistan has been plagued with inflation for a long time, which creates pressure to meet day-to-day household expenses in limited income. It is extremely important that an additional source of income is available, which cushions monthly expenses. Investment management has long been carried out for additional income, however, in an inflationary environment where cost of living is increasing year-on-year, having and executing a plan for investments of residual funds …

  For years, large scale hydropower progress has been sighted as something of a pariah within the renewable power sector. Indeed, despite an acknowledged contribution to sustainable power growth ‘ hydropower’s worldwide kWh contribution dwarfs all other renewable technologies ‘ it has chiefly been excluded from considerations that merit other forms of renewable energy generation and has weathered widespread criticism over schemes deemed unsustainable. All that is altering though, and …