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| May 26, 2008 | Monday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1429 |
An abrupt and belated move
 Last Thursday, the State Bank appeared to have woken up to the fact that the country was facing high inflation and increased the benchmark rate by a record 150 basis points....
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Support policies for a turnaround
 THE business confidence of the textile industry was somewhat renewed after two top textile tycoons, Bashir Ali Mohammad and Tariq Say eed Saigol were included in the Economic Advisory Council....
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Stuck in rough waters
 It is getting ugly out there. The private sector says they find business pages of newspapers pretty depressing. The government needs to generate positive economic news to nurture positive sentiments among key economic players....
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Wheat: where has the trading surplus gone?
 THE biggest question mark lurking before the Punjab food planners these days is where the over two million tons of tradable surplus of wheat has gone....
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A profitable way to tackle salinity
 AGRICULTURAL productivity is severely affected by soil salinity because salt levels are harmful to plant growth. Estimates show that at present about 20 per cent of the irrigated land in the world is affected by salinity....
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Banana cultivation and marketing
 BANANA is a nutritious fruit and leads all other fruits in food value. It is rich in carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. Banana produces 300 to 700 mounds of edible matter per acre, higher than average yield of any food crop....
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Saudis eying investment in farming
A 3-day international conference of the World Economic Forum (WEF) held from May 18-20 at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, provided an opportunity to the world leaders and investors to discuss, on the sidelines, issues of bilateral trade and investment.....
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Balochistan seeks debt relief
As usual, Balochistan is facing severe financial constraints in the budget-making for the next fiscal year. While grappling with its debt liabilities and interest payments, the cash-starved province is planning new development schemes....
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Price of government intervention
 International crude oil prices are moving towards a stipulated $150 a barrel. And the surging prices pose a serious threat to the developing economies hit by trade deficit and high inflation....
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Staying afloat sans money
 It was not long ago that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) parliamentarians led by Naveed Qamar, now finance minister, demanded that the Competition Ordinance must be a state-of-the-art law and the...
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A glut of unearned incomes
A foreigner in the streets of Karachi sees a number of new luxurious cars like Mercedes Benz, a string of new BMW’s and a few Porsches all blocked by traffic jam...
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World commodities
 Wheat...
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The messy battle against inflation
 FOR months the Indian government has been battling the phantom of inflation, launching a series of measures – including trying to suck liquidity out of the system by raising the cash...
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Generics vs brands: scramble for market share
 GENERIC drugs now account for more than $40 billion in prescription sales worldwide. More than $80 billion worth of global blockbuster drugs faces US patent expiry by 2008....
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‘Perceptions of change’
 The glitter of a few cities should not lead one to believe naively that the country is on a definite development trajectory. Thus there is stark dualism concealed not only within these sprawling cities but also all across the country....
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Using technology to alleviate poverty
 Pogrammes like ‘One Laptop Per Child’ are aimed at fighting poverty through the use of technology and have paved way for some remarkable innovations, creating ripples on the socio-economic development landscape....
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No growth spillover in poorer districts
 When it comes to poverty, governments and their economic managers and planners prefer to talk about absolute numbers - national averages or national poverty estimates....
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Breaching the debt ceiling
 The current year’s budget appears to have gone out of control and the government is looking around desperately for additional resources to balance the books. Meanwhile, the proposal to tax the...
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The lure of the international market
 Pakistan’s rice merchants may find it luring to export a much larger quantity of basmati this season because of some favourable turns in the global market....
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Stocks battered by discount rate hike
 THE KSE 100-share index was massively battered throughout last week on panic selling after hike in interest rate by 1.5 per cent to 12 per cent amidst renewed fears about political confrontation between the contenders of power on some core issues....
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Rupee rebounds against the dollar
 The rupee has been under pressure, particularly in the past few weeks, because of increased demand for dollars from importers, particularly for oil payments as a result of rising international prices....
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Monetary policy tightened
 Under the Treasury Bills auction held on May 21, the State Bank of Pakistan mopped up Rs3.5bn against the total participation of Rs10.77bn....
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Purchasing power eroded by price rise of essentials
 THERE was no let-up in price spiral which has gripped the Karachi wholesale markets for the last couple of months, and prices of essential items shot up, despite an improvement in ready supply position on some counters....
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World’s largest dam
China’s Three Gorges Dam, costing $25 billion, is acknowledged as the world’s largest dam. Actually, it is the Itaipu Dam across the Parana River between Brazil and Paraguay....
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