The tax debate

Improved tax collection numbers for FY11 only reinforce the centrality of the FBR to any meaningful initiative at raising revenue, especially since the 18th...

Where the Fund stands

The IMF’s disappointment with Pakistan’s fiscal indicators raises some important questions that concern both growth and employment. One, fiscal deficit projected at 6.5 per...

Just what the doctor ordered

The initiative of the ministry of industries to collaborate with Japanese institutions to impart technical training to skilled and unskilled labour is just what...

Food security

The breakdown in food security monitoring following devolution at the ministry of food and agriculture is just another example of simple government neglect compromising...

Derailing ‘win-win’ trade diplomacy

Recent findings that Indian trade authorities might be deliberately delaying Pakistan’s EU concessions, especially after the win-win fanfare, is symptomatic of regressive tendencies in...

On debt, deficits and portfolio investment

Recent reports indicating widening deficits, imminent debt repayment and reversing portfolio investment make for sobering reading and vindicate our position that the government must...

How to fly right

And again PIA requests bailout assistance, and again the cabinet committee on restructuring cites failure to incorporate appropriate management changes for dismissal, with a...

On Governor Yasin’s term

Change seems to be the consistent state atop important institutions with head-shuffles at foreign, information, power, petroleum and finance ministries now being mimicked by...

The HUBCO signal!

Market sentiment may well be fickle, and the bear hug on the KSE will likely fizzle out sooner rather than later, but far deeper...

Repeated water and power mistakes

Provided the prime minister’s inauguration of the Diamer-Bhasha dam is not a repeat performance of previous stalled attempts to get the ball rolling on...

Strengthening investment

The recent Pak-Japan MoU to strengthen bilateral investment is indicative of saner heads finally prevailing in decision-making circles. Recent developments, though seemingly isolated incidents,...

Simply unacceptable!

That the ministry of water and power embarrassed itself, and the country, when a ministerial level delegation went unprepared to an MoU signing with...

Ensuring monetary success

The state bank rate cut, though larger than immediate expectations, must be the first of a series of steps to ensure money market bottlenecks...