Budget 2018-19

  The Saudi money will help Pakistan shore up its foreign reserves, which have been shrinking. Pakistan’s currency bounced back on Wednesday to gain 2.48 rupees against the US dollar in intra-day trading, after long-time ally  Saudi Arabia  announced a support package of $4.2 billion, traders and bankers said. The Saudi money will help  Pakistan  shore up its foreign reserves, which have been shrinking. The rupee closed the previous session at 175.60 against the dollar. It had depreciated around 13.6 per cent since May. “The rupee appreciation is result of the Saudi funding announcement, widely seen as a positive surprise much needed to bolster the external account,” Saad Hashemy, executive director at BMA Capital, said. Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday $3 billion to support Pakistan’s foreign reserves, as well as extending financing of oil derivatives trade for a total of $1.2 billion during the year, Pakistan’s Information Min­ister Fawad Chaudhry s...

  Last month, Fitch Ratings revised down its forecasts for the Pakistani rupee for both this year and next due to a variety of factors Pakistan’s rupee hit a record low on Monday of 173.20 in intra-day trading against the dollar before closing at 172.78, below the previous close of 171.18, after reports of a failure of talks with the International Monetary Fund, traders said. The government’s finance ministry on Monday dismissed reports by local media over the weekend that talks from October 4 to 15 for the release of a $1 billion loan tranche were inconclusive. “Negotiations between Pakistan and IMF are moving forward positively. No timeframe was set at any stage for the conclusion of the talks,” the finance ministry said. In June, a similar round of talks between the two sides had failed. Last month, Fitch Ratings revised down its forecasts for the  Pakistan Economy  for both this year and next due to a variety of factors, including an increased flow of US dollars into ...

  Expects economy to grow 11.5% next year, which could slightly correct govt’s fiscal mathematics The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pegged contraction in India’s economy at eight per cent in the current financial year, higher than 7.7 per cent projected by the official advance estimates. However, it expected the growth to rise to 11.5 per cent in the next financial year before slowing down to 6.8 per cent, helping the economy regain its tag of the fastest growing large economy in the world in both the years. ALSO READ:  Mahindra, Reliance commit to WEF’s Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics In the World Economic Outlook released on Tuesday, IMF said the second quarter GDP numbers for India surprised it on the upside. India’s economy declined by 7.5 per cent in the quarter, while most experts had expected it to be in the double digits. The Fund was also surprised on the upside by the growth numbers for Australia, Euro Area, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Turkey and the Unit...

  Pakistan is unlikely to exit the Financial Action Task Forces (FATF) grey list as it has been unable to comply with six of the 27 points in the global watchdogs action plan, according to reports The FATF had given Pakistan a total of 27 action plan obligations for completely checking terror financing of which so far it has cleared 21 but has failed in some of the key tasks. The obligations included action against two of India’s most wanted terrorists Maulana Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed. Besides, FATF has strongly noted the fact that there was sudden disappearance of the names of more than 4,000 terrorists from its original list of 7,600 under Schedule IV of its Anti Terrorism Act. The Paris-based global watchdog is holding its virtual plenary session on October 21-23. It will take the final call on  Pakistan’ s continuation on its grey list after a thorough review of Islamabad’s performance in fulfilling the global commitments and standards in the fight against money launde...