Zaicha

As the global age takes its course, Pakistan has an unparallel opportunity to estabelish its identity as a pluralist state

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Location: Bahawalpur, Pakistan

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Economy

SingTel Launches Managed IP-VPN Service in Pakistan
SYS-CON Media - Aug 09: Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), Asia's leading communications group, and Cybernet, Pakistan's largest Internet and data network operator, today announced that they have entered into a supply-agreement to provide Internet Protocol-Virtual
US for early signing of BIT with Pakistan
Khaleej Times - ISLAMABAD — The Bush administration has indicated its willingness to revise America's investment procedures and to remove some of the harsh conditions to facilitate the signing of the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with Pakistan by September, 2006.
ISLAMABAD, July 17: The government on Monday unveiled its trade policy for 2006-07, which seeks to further liberalise foreign trade and projects an export target of $18.6...
The apex court has not questioned the concept of privatisation. It has, however, pointed out the perversion of the process by corruption and also found the decision to privatise the PSM lacking a national consensus.
LAHORE, June 22: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi on Thursday said the government had diverted its resources towards the development of south Punjab and other backward regions, and the new police system would help improve law and order in the province....
ISLAMABAD, June 19: The World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have estimated that poverty rate in Pakistan ranges between 25.7 per cent and 28.3...
THE budget for the next fiscal year, presented by the minister of state for finance, Omar Ayub Khan, in the National Assembly on Monday, carries a substantial package of relief for the common man.
ISLAMABAD, June 5: The government has presented Rs1.5 trillion federal budget for 2006-07 in the National Assembly, which sets a revenue target of Rs840 billion, defence spending of Rs250.2 billion and fiscal deficit of Rs373.5 billion, amounting to 25 per cent of the total budget outlay.
World Bank approves $6.5 billion loan
WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, June 2: The World Bank and its commercial arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), have approved a $6.5-billion loan for Pakistan under a new four-year assistance programme but raised doubts...
ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf on Friday said the next year Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) would have an unprecedented allocation of Rs 415 billion and indicated subsidies on essent....
KARACHI, May 26: Nine ships loaded with around 112,500 tons of sugar from India are expected to reach Karachi before the end of current month. Seven ships have already left Mumbai...
ISLAMABAD, May 24: Reduction in major crops’ output and lower than expected industrial performance overshadowed Pakistan’s modest 6.6 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate during the current year, below the target of seven per cent....
ISLAMABAD, May 14: The oil marketing companies and refineries have threatened to pull out their $1 billion investment of the country if the government accepts National Accountability Bureau’s proposal to recover Rs4.5...
US energy secretary Samuel Bodman is to visit Pakistan in the near future to discuss the country’s energy needs. Mr Bodman will be coming to Pakistan following President Bush’s visit when he was asked by Pakistan to provide assistance to meet the country’s growing energy needs. Shortly after Mr Bush’s departure, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was quoted as telling the head of a major foreign oil exploration company who met him in Islamabad that the country’s energy needs were growing at the rate of 10-12 per cent a year. According to data kept by the US department of energy itself, Pakistan’s energy consumption has nearly tripled in the last two decades.
Sultan Ahmad
Pakistan is clearly a country where growers and producers prevail and of the middlemen who make far too much money. They can raise sugar cane prices from Rs 40 to Rs 70 for 40 kilos or the manufacturers raise their prices and increase their profits but the workers can’t demand cheaper essential goods or higher wages, so the rich get richer and their political clout increases, while the poor become poorer and suffer gross malnutrition and other pangs of poverty.
Agriculture and its discontents will always remain in the news as it affects all of us one way or the other.
Riaz Missen
As Pakistan nears eight per cent GDP growth level, the greatest challenge now is how to sustain it in the face of political chaos the country is confronting right now. Wana is turbulent and Sibi is restless; the country is virtually in the grip of violence, though its policies projecting it as a business friendly state remain intact.
Farrukh Saleem
Pakistan's oil cartel has ten members; Shell, Caltex, Attock Petroleum, Total, Bosicor, PSO, Attock Refinery, National Refinery, Pak-Arab Refinery and Pakistan Refinery. The cartel's platform: Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC). As is always the case with cartels, the members are all interlinked through cross-ownerships.
The government on Friday did not come up with new steps to reduce sugar prices, but partially held the provincial governments responsible for the hike.