Tag: Raises

LAHORE - To help employees overcome the increasing cost of living, MCB has increased salaries for its permanent clerical staff and guards by 17 percent, in addition to an increment to various allowances. This was announced in a press release issued today. Besides the increase in salaries and allowances, various grants for marriage, funeral, children scholarship and maternity charges have also been enhanced. The threshold of entitlement for loans including advance salary, house loan

GUJRANWALA - An incident which took the lives of seven people, including all the four children of a couple, has raised the burning questions which require attention of the government and policy makers. An expatriate living in Dubai lost his 12-year-old Afshan, nine-year-old Shahzad, seven-year-old Kashif and three-year-old Abdullah while his wife was helplessly transferred to a Lahore hospital without any medication.
The incident sparked agitation at the time of the four funerals

KARACHI - The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday revised upward Statutory Liquidity Requirement (SLR) for the Islamic banks and Islamic banking branches.
The central bank under Section 36 of the SBP Act, 1956, and Section 29 of the Banking Companies Ordinance, 1962 made and notified changes in its earlier circulars, BSD Circulars No 26 of October 17, 2008 and No 13 of June 09, 2008, through issuing DMMD Circular No 1 of 2011.
To come into effect from April 1, the

KARACHI - The State Bank of Pakistan has decided to increase the maximum financing limit to a single export oriented project under the Long Term Financing Facility (LTFF) Scheme for Plant and Machinery to Rs 1.5 billion.
Previously, the maximum financing limit under LTFF) Scheme was Rs 1.0 billion. The central bank, through issuing SMEFD Circular Letter No 04, notified this revision to the banks and development financial institutions (DFI). However, the regulator said, banks and

The nomination of Shamshad Qureshi as member of the Board of Directors of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) has raised questions over government efforts to pull the mills out of the current crises.
It has been learnt that the PSM Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) Chairman Shamshad Qureshi has been selected as the new board member of the mills despite the fact that he had earlier been nominated by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the infamous canteen corruption case.
If he

ISLAMABAD: While President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's decision to ignore Qamar Zaman Kaira and Nazar Mohammad Gondal have raised many eyebrows, the decision not to reappoint Shah Mehmood Qureshi the foreign minister has come as a major surprise and reappointment of seventeen already tried and tested individuals explicitly suggests that this is a cosmetic change that will seemingly not work miracles for the crises-ridden government.
While the size of

BEIJING - China raised interest rates for the second time in just over six weeks, intensifying a battle in fast-expanding economy against stubbornly high inflation that threatens to unsettle global markets.
The timing was a surprise, coming on the final day of China's Lunar New Year holiday, but investors have long expected more monetary tightening as Beijing struggles to rein in price pressures and ward off a property bubble in an economy that grew at a double-digit pace last

ISLAMABAD - The recovery of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's BlackBerry phones after more than three years of her death and that too from Bilawal House, has raised many questions as when the Scotland Yard team had asked for them, no one had provided these phones to the investigators.
More intriguing is the fact that it was in the knowledge of President Asif Ali Zardari where these phones were as he had admitted this while addressing the PPP's CEC meeting on Friday when he

KARACHI - The government, sustaining its reliance on the banking system, raised over Rs 194.555 billion on Wednesday from the commercial banks through auction of long and short-term government securities. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) tendered the three, six and twelve month Government of Pakistan Market Treasury Bills (MTBs) and received bids of Rs 231.305 billion from primary dealers.
Investors, fearing uncertainties emanating from global recession, high interest rate and

NEW YORK - Facebook says it has raised $1 billion from non-U.S. investors through Goldman Sachs. As expected, Facebook says it will start filing public financial reports by April 2012.
The company expects to have more than 500 shareholders in April of this year. When it does, regulations require it to start reporting is finances to the public within a year.
Combined with a $500 million investment from Goldman (GS), funds Goldman manages and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Chinese President Hu Jintao to uphold human rights in his country, saying it could prove key to China's future success.
"The US welcomes China's rise as a strong, prosperous and successful member of the community of nations," Obama said as he welcomed Hu to the White House.
But straying into the contentious issue of human rights, Obama added, "History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are more

LONDON - Britain's standard rate of sales tax, or VAT, increased to 20 percent in one of several moves to slash a record public deficit, but the opposition said it would hit the poorest hardest.
Finance minister George Osborne insisted the rise from 17.5 percent was a "reasonable" step towards economic recovery and would raise £13 billion ($20.2 billion) a year.
Retailers have warned it could put the brakes on consumer spending at a time when Britain's economic recovery

BEIJING - China was miserly in raising interest rates on Christmas Day, but in fact investors have good reasons to be grateful. The government provided much-needed reassurance that it was determined to rein in price pressures; a salutary reminder that more yuan appreciation than the market expects could be in the offing.
The key take-away from the rate increase, China's second in just over two months, is that Beijing is softly, softly pulling every tightening lever within its

BEIJING - China's central bank on Saturday raised interest rates for the second time in three months as authorities ramped up efforts to curb borrowing, rein in property prices and tame inflation.
The People's Bank of China said in a brief one-line statement that it will increase the one-year lending and deposit rates by 25 basis points each. The move takes the rates to 5.81 percent and 2.75 percent respectively from Sunday.
In October, policymakers raised rates for the

BEIJING: China's central bank on Friday increased the amount of money that lenders must keep on reserve for the third time in one month, a move to mop up excess cash in the economy and rein in inflation. But the decision to raise banks' required reserves rather than interest rates means that officials have opted for a milder form of monetary tightening for the time being, suggesting that they believe price pressures are still well within their ability to control.
The 50 basis

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations on Wednesday expressed increasing alarm over sluggish funds for the country 21 million flood victims, appealing to donors to act swiftly to stave off a new winter emergency.
"We are getting more concerned that the funding is slowing down," UN spokeswoman Stacey Winston told a press conference in Islamabad.
Only 39 percent of a record appeal for nearly $2 billion - about $760 million - has been received and almost another $8 million pledged, UN

LAHORE
Continuing the fresh wave of unauthorised commercialisation in Model Town, a plan has been finalised for converting a public park measuring 55 kanals into a commercial plaza in sheer violation of the building by-laws mentioned in the Model Town Society's master plan, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The Model Town Society (MTS) has outlined the proposal to covert the park located in J-Block into a commercial plaza and decided to present the plan in the annual general