An American politician Alexander Hamilton said: A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. External debt refers to the money borrowed by a country from foreign investors. Debtors can be sovereign nations, corporations or private individuals. The debt itself can take the form of money owed to private banks, external governments and global financial institutions including the World Bank or International Monetary Funds. Early phase of economic development, developing countries gather foreign debt as high existing account deficits, shortfall of domestic saving and capital stock. For this purpose, imports are necessary to boost up domestic resources. External debt is applied as a tool to reduce the gap b...
October 9, 2014 at 1:16 pm | News Desk
Storming IPOs at stock exchanges KARACHI: Initial public offerings are back in the headlines and that too with a bang. Stock exchanges round the globe have been tied up with overflowing number of public listings. Some global business groups have even regarded 2014 as the busiest year for book runners, financial advisors and lead managers since 1999-2000 era of the dot-com bubble. Even the record breaking IPO of AliBaba-–the ecommerce titan of the East-–has been marked as the largest ever stock market floatation. Not to omit the interesting case of Pakistan. The initial and secondary public offerings since last year including Engro Fertilizers, Avanceon, Hascol Petroleum, Lalpir, Pakistan International Bulk Terminal, Unite Bank Limi...
October 5, 2014 at 11:34 am | News Desk
Dilawar Hussain AFTER a long time, cash is again the king. Corporates and high net-worth individuals are sitting on piles of cash, wondering how to put all the surplus money to profitable use. The economy is indeed flush with liquidity,” a senior economist associated with a foreign bank agreed. The State Bank of Pakistan’s recently released report, giving data for two-and-a-half months of the current fiscal year (July to mid-September) revealed that the private sector had retired debt instead of borrowing; the net borrowing by the sector during the period was negative Rs74bn. Professor M.A Jabbar, who teaches economics at a local business school, pointed out that a glance at the balance sheets of big companies would show a sizeable...
October 5, 2014 at 9:55 am | News Desk
The first thing first: there is no threat to the democratic process in the country from the armed forces. It's on record that the forces' high command has exhibited extreme patience and helped the civil rulers in confronting serious challenges by conducting it through heavy waters of poor governance; yet the underlying tone of most of the high-decibel oratory in joint session of parliament was that the sit-ins at the D-Chowk are part of a 'plan' to wrap up the democratic system. The hard fact is that the sit-inners have challenged the government headed by Nawaz Sharif that enjoys a comfortable majority in the parliament, and is fully empowered to handle it. Perhaps, it is the common fear of being wrapped up, based on our history that has ge...
September 18, 2014 at 5:49 pm | News Desk
Mehmood ul Hassan Khan The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plays a crucial role in global and regional economic development. It is a leading player in strengthening partnerships with Arab bilateral and multilateral partners for development assistance and scaling up support for countries in transition in many parts of the world. Despite weak global economic conditions and ongoing financial crunch, it is one of the fastest and most stable economic growth patterns in the world. Undoubtedly it holds a spiritual, economic, and political position that is rarely seen, and is respected all over the world. Nominal GDP and Real Growth Rates (2008-2014) Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Middle East and Nort...
September 18, 2014 at 12:20 am | News Desk
Jon Queally Dodd-Frank regulations have done little or nothing to diminish systemic threat of large financial institutions as FDIC and Fed regulators say “living wills” are inadequate to avoid repeat of 2008 disaster Nearly six years after the financial crisis of 2008 that helped spur a global economic meltdown, federal regulators in the U.S. on August 5, 2014 declared that much-touted reforms designed to curb the threat of so-called ‘Too Big To Fail’ banks have done not nearly enough to end the prospect that taxpayers will be left holding the bag when the next bubble bursts or a new wave of Wall Street disasters strikes. Presented in a joint review by the Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Board of Directors o...
August 15, 2014 at 12:28 pm | News Desk
Till 1989, the average Pakistani is better off than the average Chinese or Indian for that matter, in terms of GDP / Capita. The graph would change. By 2012, the Chinese would be 6 times better off than their Pakistani counterparts. Their GDP would rise by 30% - the economic reforms in the 1980’s would leave everyone behind; and a talk on China’s exponential growth and towering skyline would trigger an inadvertent comparison with its trusty ally. Adil Husain, originally from Karachi, and later found in Washington eventually ended up spending 7 year in China, and was recently seen waving a disclaimer in T2F (The Second Floor). The views, he will share are his own. The contrasts he witnesses will be dramatic. And the China from his van...
August 12, 2014 at 3:35 am | News Desk
Raja Taimur Hassan This age of information and knowledge has emerged as a means to address economic growth and development around the world. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has enabled countries to be more productive, most efficient, and spur their economic growth. Numerous studies indicate a strong link between ICT and economic growth which means that open ICT policies contribute to higher GDP. During the past many years, due to much delay in spectrum auction for next generation, investors remained reluctant to take any bold decision with regard to investment in ICT. The statistics of past 6 years (2007-2012) reveal the sharp declining trend in investment of telecom sector. According to Economic Survey of Pakistan 2013...
August 12, 2014 at 2:10 am | News Desk
Big Corporations Have An OVERWHELMING Amount Of Power Over Our Food Supply Michael Snyder From our fields to our forks, huge corporations have an overwhelming amount of power over our food supply every step of the way. Right now there are more than 313 million people living in the United States, and the job of feeding all of those people is almost entirely in the hands of just a few dozen monolithic companies. If you do not like how our food is produced or you don’t believe that it is healthy enough, it isn’t very hard to figure out who is to blame. These mammoth corporations are not in business to look out for the best interests of the American people. Rather, the purpose of these corporations is to maximize wealth for th...
July 18, 2014 at 2:34 pm | News Desk
In his latest scheme to end US sovereignty, Obama is renewing his efforts for the US to join the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty. The US has refused to do this for the last 30 years, but this could be the year that we lose control of our seas if Obama has his way. Not only would it give the UN control of the world’s seas, but it would actually allow the UN to tax American citizens and companies. Also, U.S. energy companies would have to pay royalties to the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica and force them to abide by UN rules when it comes to deep-sea exploration. If the US signs this, we will lose a huge part of our sovereignty to the United Nations. The effort for the U.S. to ratify the Law of the Sea Conventio...
July 18, 2014 at 2:01 pm | News Desk
Mr Heyward is a senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and was until recently Assistant Secretary Africa Branch, a position he held from June 2011. Prior to this, he was Assistant Secretary, Consular Operations Branch. He has previously served overseas as Australia's Ambassador to East Timor; Ambassador to Brazil, also accredited to Colombia and Venezuela; Deputy Permanent Representative, Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Geneva and Deputy Head of Mission, Australian Embassy, Argentina. Mr Heyward holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tasmania, and a Graduation Certificate in Management from Monash University. He is married and has two daughters. “There are many vari...
July 13, 2014 at 12:42 am | News Desk
Dr. Fawad Kaiser If you want your country to have a great economy, it has got to produce wealth. And one of the primary ways to produce wealth is to manufacture different products. But we decided to start shipping in cheaper products from overseas. At first it didn't create too much of a problem for our massive economy, but eventually the floodgates opened up and we lost tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions upon millions of good paying jobs. Our labour pool was merged with the labour pool of countries such as China where it is legal to pay cheap labour wages to manufacturing workers. Needless to say, our manufacturers could not compete with that and our middle class started to shrink rapidly. By using chan...
July 13, 2014 at 12:30 am | News Desk
Tausif-ur-Rehman Suleman Pervez Ahmed, Lahore’s youngest and finest entrepreneur found himself caught in the newsflash as Brands Asia acknowledged him as the Entrepreneur of the Year, 2014 and Origins as Brand of the Year. He spent his last four years making his idea of a fashion retail brand grow into a prospering investment. Mr. Ahmed can be defined as a risk taker who has financial as well as operational expertise. His educational background includes graduation from Royal Holloway College and a diploma in Entrepreneurship from London School of Economics. With an accurate assessment of fashion market in Pakistan, he carved his way into the industry as he launched Origins in 2010 The brand further gained international recognition a...
July 13, 2014 at 12:14 am | News Desk
Sabria Chowdhury Balland An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law ----Martin Luther King The above quote may seem like an idealized version of the system of incarceration and the philosophies behind it. The reality of the situation is quite far from this idealism, even more so when considering the private prison business sector in the United States. Human rights, social and political organizations are condemning what they rightfully see as an exploitation of an inhumane nature which has begun in the United States. Nearly 2...
July 12, 2014 at 11:58 pm | News Desk
Haider Anwar Khan Bitcoins have surged many-fold in value since last year. The concept is simple – use of peer-to-peer technology to operate and no central supervisory authority managing the transactions. Issuance of Bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Being an open source, Bitcoin’s design is public, everyone can take part and nobody owns or controls the Bitcoin. What is it? Developed in 2009, Bitcoin is a digital currency which can be used for personal or business transactions. As a form of payment service, Bitcoin has seen rapid growth as merchants have an incentive to accept it lower fee than credit cards. Bitcoins are created by a process called ‘mining’ whereby a complex mathematical algorithm needs t...
July 12, 2014 at 9:28 pm | News Desk
Kashif Mateen Ansari Energy is a key infrastructural requirement for the modern industrial economy. Energy provides an essential ingredient for almost all human activities. Historically, Pakistan has been an energy deficient country. Because of the fast-growing population and economy, the demand for energy is rapidly increasing. Pakistan is in danger of facing huge energy deficits in the coming years. The potential for the use of alternative technologies has never been fully explored in Pakistan. Pakistan needs to pursue renewable energy resources which are used extensively worldwide. The two most important alternative energy resources are Wind Power and Solar Energy. These are used across the globe and their technology is beco...
July 12, 2014 at 9:16 pm | News Desk
Pakistan Rupee Exchange Rate