The four provinces jointly provided a whopping cash surplus of Rs202 billion to the Centre during the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal year to help meet its fiscal targets committed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The provinces did not utilise more than one-fourth of the funds for the welfare of their citizens made available to them under their total revenue.
Manpower export from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia has recorded a significant increase of 207% during the first 10 months of 2019 as compared to last year. According to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, more than 258,215 Pakistanis travelled to Saudi Arabia in search of employment in different sectors while only 84,091 went to Saudi Arabia looking for different opportunities.
The rupee posted moderate gains in both the currency markets against dollar during the outgoing week, boosted by strong foreign inflows and positive macroeconomic indicators. The rupee closed at 155.28 against the greenback on Monday and closed at 155.06 on Friday while in the open market the rupee gained 25 paisad to close at 155.10 against the dollar.
Director Public Affairs and Communications of Coca-Cola Pakistan, Fahad Qadir, has become the first Pakistani to be featured in “40 under 40” list of Asia Pacific’s next generation of leadership. The list was issued by Campaign Asia- Pacific, UK’s largest independently owned publishing group. Campaign Asia-Pacific received about 1500 nominations from which Qaidir was chosen as one of the ‘brightest and high-achieving’ marketing professionals.
The government has decided to develop an indigenous LNG shipping facility, by building the operational capacity of Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) in the next few years. As the import of LNG has been on the rise since the past couple of years to meet the local demand,, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs asked PNSC to make a joint-venture setup in the coming months with the private shipping service.
Moody’s Investors Services upgraded Pakistan’s outlook from ‘negative’ to ‘stable’, reaffirming the country’s rating of B3. Moody’s had downgraded Pakistan’s ratings outlook to negative last year in June, citing heightened external vulnerability risk due to depleting foreign exchange reserves. The upgrade was welcomed by Pakistan, attributing the development to an “improvement in balance of payments position, supported by policy adjustments and currency flexibility”.
According to the weekly report of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), foreign exchange reserves of Pakistan crossed $15.5 billion mark that are at the highest since June 2019. As per the report, the total foreign reserves of State Bank have recorded an increase of $240 million and stand at $8,682.3 million. While the commercial banks have a total of $6,895.4 million of foreign reserves.
The Pakistan stock market has posted the largest gain since May 2013 as the market closed the month on a gain of more than 5084 points in a single month. The benchmark index saw a record-breaking gain during the month of November with astonishing volumes reaching more than 3.10 billion shares traded during the month alone, said Malik Fazal Nadeem, who is an Assistant Vice President at BMA Capital Management.
Poland has shown interest in enhancing bilateral trade with Pakistan. According to Poland Ambassador to Pakistan Piotr A Opalinski, Pakistan and Poland have good potential to trade many goods with each other as bilateral trade volume between Poland and Pakistan had increased to over half a billion euros. The envoy said Poland was located in central Europe and could become a hub for Pakistan’s exports to the European Union.
Pakistan plans its first Chinese yuan-denominated bond, also known as Panda bond in the first quarter of next year, worth about $1 billion, reflecting growing demand for the country’s debt as its economic outlook improved. This will be the first time that the government will be assessing the Chinese capital market, which is the third largest bond market in the world.