Pakistan Economy : Updates and Discussions
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Get 6 billion spread in 3 years, with a ton of TOUGH conditions, when Pakistan $ shortfall in next 3 years is 50 billion....
haha
haha
Just a three day border skirmish will send this amount down the drain.
$ 2 billion per year !!!! I don't understand how does that help their economy ? @Nilgiri sir my economic understanding fails here, becoz it does not look like a financial help but policy driven agreement, where pakistani govt is told to follow the free market strategy, I expected some $ 12 billion of loans. But then it looks like they don't have the capacity to pay back as they already owe IMF some $ 5.8 billion from previous loans and USA was in no mood give up.
This deal will not solve their problem at all, not even for short time.
This deal will not solve their problem at all, not even for short time.
this means that IMF has in a way given them more time to pay up their own loan of $ 5.8 billion ...........so now IMF will take $ 5.8 billion + interest out of $ 6 billion & hand them a lollipop !!!
They get some sort of assurance certificate from IMF so that they can beg for loans from other agencies
US transfers funds meant for Pakistan for building Mexico border wall
Anwar Iqbal, Updated May 12, 2019
WASHINGTON: The United States is transferring $1.5 billion meant for Afghanistan and Pakistan to a fund to build the Mexican border wall, says acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
The funds have been reprogrammed despite an increase in attacks inside Afghanistan and a complaint by the US chief negotiator that peace talks with the Taliban are not moving at a sufficient pace.
“We reprogrammed $1.5 billion towards the construction of more than 120 miles of border barrier without impacting readiness,” Mr Shanahan said in a statement released late Friday.
More than $600 million of these funds come from an Afghan security forces account while an unspecified amount was taken from the funds previously meant for Pakistan.
“The funds were culled from a variety of sources, to include unexecuted prior year funds, the suspension of reimbursements to Pakistan, and costs reductions in a series of contracts,” Secretary Shanahan said.
The Pentagon announced that the reprogrammed money will be used to build more than 120 miles of barriers along the US-Mexico border.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who heads the US team negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, said on Friday that the peace talks were not only moving at a slow place but had also failed to halt increasing attacks on civilian and military targets.
“We made steady but slow progress on aspects of the framework for ending the Afghan war. We are getting into the nitty gritty. The devil is always in the details,” he wrote in a tweet.
“However, the current pace of talks isn’t sufficient when so much conflict rages and innocent people die. We need more and faster progress. Our proposal for all sides to reduce violence also remains on the table,” he added.
US and Taliban representatives have held six rounds of direct talks since October in Doha, Qatar, to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan. The latest round of negotiations with the Taliban ended on Thursday.
The Afghan government, however, is not involved in the talks as the Taliban refused to sit with Kabul, after calling it a US “puppet”. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, however, has called the current round of talks “positive”, adding that “progress” was made on some points but others were “yet to be finalised”.
The talks have, so far, focused on two key points: the full withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and ensuring that Afghanistan is not used as a base to harm other countries.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, and Mullah Baradar, a co-founder of the militant group, were leading the Taliban team in the talks.
Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2019
US transfers funds meant for Pakistan for building Mexico border wall - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
Anwar Iqbal, Updated May 12, 2019
WASHINGTON: The United States is transferring $1.5 billion meant for Afghanistan and Pakistan to a fund to build the Mexican border wall, says acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
The funds have been reprogrammed despite an increase in attacks inside Afghanistan and a complaint by the US chief negotiator that peace talks with the Taliban are not moving at a sufficient pace.
“We reprogrammed $1.5 billion towards the construction of more than 120 miles of border barrier without impacting readiness,” Mr Shanahan said in a statement released late Friday.
More than $600 million of these funds come from an Afghan security forces account while an unspecified amount was taken from the funds previously meant for Pakistan.
“The funds were culled from a variety of sources, to include unexecuted prior year funds, the suspension of reimbursements to Pakistan, and costs reductions in a series of contracts,” Secretary Shanahan said.
The Pentagon announced that the reprogrammed money will be used to build more than 120 miles of barriers along the US-Mexico border.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who heads the US team negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, said on Friday that the peace talks were not only moving at a slow place but had also failed to halt increasing attacks on civilian and military targets.
“We made steady but slow progress on aspects of the framework for ending the Afghan war. We are getting into the nitty gritty. The devil is always in the details,” he wrote in a tweet.
“However, the current pace of talks isn’t sufficient when so much conflict rages and innocent people die. We need more and faster progress. Our proposal for all sides to reduce violence also remains on the table,” he added.
US and Taliban representatives have held six rounds of direct talks since October in Doha, Qatar, to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan. The latest round of negotiations with the Taliban ended on Thursday.
The Afghan government, however, is not involved in the talks as the Taliban refused to sit with Kabul, after calling it a US “puppet”. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, however, has called the current round of talks “positive”, adding that “progress” was made on some points but others were “yet to be finalised”.
The talks have, so far, focused on two key points: the full withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and ensuring that Afghanistan is not used as a base to harm other countries.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, and Mullah Baradar, a co-founder of the militant group, were leading the Taliban team in the talks.
Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2019
US transfers funds meant for Pakistan for building Mexico border wall - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
Or a plaque (a-la time capsule) in remembrance of PAKISTAN. A fake nation born out of thin air vanished into thin air in 75years.....
Ask me about Samosa, Pakora prices, not IMF: Asad Umar
by News Desk , (Last Updated 3 hours ago)
Former finance minister Asad Umar on Tuesday reportedly refused to comment on the financial bailout package reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the deteriorating economic situation of the country.
According to details, when Asad Umar was questioned about the IMF programme, he simply said, “What does it have to do with me now?”
“Ask me about the prices of Samosa and Pakora,” he said.
Asad Umar said that he is no more a part of the government, he is only a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) member.
“So whatever is happening now, ask about it from relevant advisers and ministers,” he added.
Pakistan and the IMF reached an agreement on Sunday under which the Fund would provide $6 billion Extended Fund Facility over the period of three years.
Asad Umar had played an important role in negotiating the deal when he was the finance minister. However, on April 18, Umar announced to quit his portfolio of finance minister after he was told by Prime Minister Imran Khan to step aside due to ‘poor performance’.
The former finance minister was on Monday appointed as the chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.
Ask me about Samosa, Pakora prices, not IMF: Asad Umar
by News Desk , (Last Updated 3 hours ago)
Former finance minister Asad Umar on Tuesday reportedly refused to comment on the financial bailout package reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the deteriorating economic situation of the country.
According to details, when Asad Umar was questioned about the IMF programme, he simply said, “What does it have to do with me now?”
“Ask me about the prices of Samosa and Pakora,” he said.
Asad Umar said that he is no more a part of the government, he is only a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) member.
“So whatever is happening now, ask about it from relevant advisers and ministers,” he added.
Pakistan and the IMF reached an agreement on Sunday under which the Fund would provide $6 billion Extended Fund Facility over the period of three years.
Asad Umar had played an important role in negotiating the deal when he was the finance minister. However, on April 18, Umar announced to quit his portfolio of finance minister after he was told by Prime Minister Imran Khan to step aside due to ‘poor performance’.
The former finance minister was on Monday appointed as the chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.
Ask me about Samosa, Pakora prices, not IMF: Asad Umar
J-20s, Pantsir, S-400, F-35, Su-35, T-90 etc are all going to be acquired.
Post IMF bailout, Pakistan's currency reaches all-time low against US dollar
Post IMF bailout, Pakistan's currency reaches all-time low against US dollar
By the time these things reach retirement, Pakistanis would have other more existential problems to deal with.
‘Bech de!’
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar I Updated May 17, 2019
MANY readers will recognise that the title of this column is borrowed from an online marketplace that is increasingly popular in Pakistan. This refrain is emblematic of the ideas that dominate our society and world, ideas that most of us endorse uncritically on a daily basis. My question is: what’s the difference between the slogan ‘Bech de!’ and the policies that the PTI government has loyally agreed to implement at the urging of the IMF?
In particular, I want to call attention to one of the fundamental prescriptions that the IMF and other multilateral donors have consistently peddled since the 1980s when the policy regime known as neo-liberalism displaced the Keynes-inspired orthodoxies of the post-WWII period. This policy is called privatisation, and by all accounts the agreement signed with the IMF a few days ago will lead to the government selling off more and more of an already emaciated public service sector.
Note that the IMF, other donors, all manner of ‘experts’ and the current finance minister himself all concur that assets parked in the public sector represent a colossal waste of resources. Ordinary Pakistanis do not need to be told that many public institutions are inefficient and sometimes even oppressive, and that many of them are little more than white elephants sucking taxpayer monies.
But does this mean that it is necessary to sell public institutions into private hands? What about the altogether reasonable alternative, which is to identify the causes of poor performance and then improve the functioning of public institutions?
After all, the state is an entity to which ordinary citizens accord authority precisely because it guarantees basic needs irrespective of class, ethnicity, gender and so on.
Yes, private enterprises may be willing to invest in the provision of basic services, but the evidence clearly confirms that they do not guarantee universal provision because it is generally not profitable.
Many of us lament the state and its retreat but rarely in terms of the economy. Here the state is conceptualised only in terms of its ‘assets’ which, when we apply the principle of ‘Bech de!’, fetch a one-time profit. So, for instance, PIA owns a hotel in central Manhattan that many private investors would jump at the opportunity to buy. Many other public-sector institutions can also be broken up into pieces and their ‘assets’ sold for profit. This is necessary, many of us believe, because we need money to keep the economy afloat.
But what about the whole principle of the state providing services to the citizenry?
Frankly, that principle went up in smoke a long time ago. Most of us ordinary Pakistanis no longer even harbour expectations of a functioning public sector. Admittedly, the state has never had a very pronounced welfare function, but there was a time not too long ago when this country’s working people, and even segments of the elite, patronised public schools/universities, public hospitals, and even shared public recreational spaces. This was because such services were provided to the larger public by the state, no matter how sparingly.
Now it is taken for granted that those of us who do not have the money or contacts will not gain access to certain services, even if it is a matter of life and death.
Today the state is talking up ‘development’ in historically under-serviced areas like rural Sindh, rural KP, Balochistan and erstwhile Fata but it’s hard to ignore the fact that most interventions are designed to facilitate private investors looking to extract mineral resources such as coal, copper, gold and various iron ores. Roads are of course being built at breakneck pace, and such infrastructure can potentially serve the wider public interest, but the emphasis is more on creating an ‘enabling environment’ for the ‘free market’ while needs such as education, health, transport, drinking water, energy are still effectively luxuries that can only be purchased on the ‘free market’.
Meanwhile, the revenues we could generate by taxing profiteers are willfully passed up, and it is public services that we put on the chopping block instead.
The most alarming privatisations on the cards are those of the remaining hospitals and colleges that do remain in the public domain. The young doctors, nurses, teachers and other public-sector employees often on strike these days can be criticised, but at least some are calling attention to the ongoing erosion of public health and education; these hospitals and colleges are the only form of insurance that working people have in a tyrannical world ruled by private profiteers.
More of us ought to think carefully about the hegemonic power of slogans such as ‘Bech de!’ and ‘Khareed le!’ and start re imagining alternatives that allow us to free ourselves from the debt and arm-twisting of the IMF and the complicity of state and private elites that could not care less about people’s needs.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019
‘Bech de!’ - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar I Updated May 17, 2019
MANY readers will recognise that the title of this column is borrowed from an online marketplace that is increasingly popular in Pakistan. This refrain is emblematic of the ideas that dominate our society and world, ideas that most of us endorse uncritically on a daily basis. My question is: what’s the difference between the slogan ‘Bech de!’ and the policies that the PTI government has loyally agreed to implement at the urging of the IMF?
In particular, I want to call attention to one of the fundamental prescriptions that the IMF and other multilateral donors have consistently peddled since the 1980s when the policy regime known as neo-liberalism displaced the Keynes-inspired orthodoxies of the post-WWII period. This policy is called privatisation, and by all accounts the agreement signed with the IMF a few days ago will lead to the government selling off more and more of an already emaciated public service sector.
Note that the IMF, other donors, all manner of ‘experts’ and the current finance minister himself all concur that assets parked in the public sector represent a colossal waste of resources. Ordinary Pakistanis do not need to be told that many public institutions are inefficient and sometimes even oppressive, and that many of them are little more than white elephants sucking taxpayer monies.
But does this mean that it is necessary to sell public institutions into private hands? What about the altogether reasonable alternative, which is to identify the causes of poor performance and then improve the functioning of public institutions?
We put public services on the chopping block.
After all, the state is an entity to which ordinary citizens accord authority precisely because it guarantees basic needs irrespective of class, ethnicity, gender and so on.
Yes, private enterprises may be willing to invest in the provision of basic services, but the evidence clearly confirms that they do not guarantee universal provision because it is generally not profitable.Many of us lament the state and its retreat but rarely in terms of the economy. Here the state is conceptualised only in terms of its ‘assets’ which, when we apply the principle of ‘Bech de!’, fetch a one-time profit. So, for instance, PIA owns a hotel in central Manhattan that many private investors would jump at the opportunity to buy. Many other public-sector institutions can also be broken up into pieces and their ‘assets’ sold for profit. This is necessary, many of us believe, because we need money to keep the economy afloat.
But what about the whole principle of the state providing services to the citizenry?
Frankly, that principle went up in smoke a long time ago. Most of us ordinary Pakistanis no longer even harbour expectations of a functioning public sector. Admittedly, the state has never had a very pronounced welfare function, but there was a time not too long ago when this country’s working people, and even segments of the elite, patronised public schools/universities, public hospitals, and even shared public recreational spaces. This was because such services were provided to the larger public by the state, no matter how sparingly.
Now it is taken for granted that those of us who do not have the money or contacts will not gain access to certain services, even if it is a matter of life and death.
Today the state is talking up ‘development’ in historically under-serviced areas like rural Sindh, rural KP, Balochistan and erstwhile Fata but it’s hard to ignore the fact that most interventions are designed to facilitate private investors looking to extract mineral resources such as coal, copper, gold and various iron ores. Roads are of course being built at breakneck pace, and such infrastructure can potentially serve the wider public interest, but the emphasis is more on creating an ‘enabling environment’ for the ‘free market’ while needs such as education, health, transport, drinking water, energy are still effectively luxuries that can only be purchased on the ‘free market’.
Meanwhile, the revenues we could generate by taxing profiteers are willfully passed up, and it is public services that we put on the chopping block instead.
The most alarming privatisations on the cards are those of the remaining hospitals and colleges that do remain in the public domain. The young doctors, nurses, teachers and other public-sector employees often on strike these days can be criticised, but at least some are calling attention to the ongoing erosion of public health and education; these hospitals and colleges are the only form of insurance that working people have in a tyrannical world ruled by private profiteers.
More of us ought to think carefully about the hegemonic power of slogans such as ‘Bech de!’ and ‘Khareed le!’ and start re imagining alternatives that allow us to free ourselves from the debt and arm-twisting of the IMF and the complicity of state and private elites that could not care less about people’s needs.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019
‘Bech de!’ - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
PayPal declines to come to Pakistan, IT secretary tells senators
Jamal Shahid I Updated May 17, 2019
ISLAMABAD: PayPal will not be coming to Pakistan despite the government’s efforts to convince the American company, which operates a worldwide online payment system that supports online money transfers, to introduce its services in the country, a Senate committee was told on Thursday.
“PayPal did not decline because it has issues operating in Pakistan. Their internal working is such that they are not ready to introduce services in Pakistan,” Ministry of Information Technology Secretary Maroof Afzal told the Senate Standing Committee on IT.
The committee met for a briefing on the IT ministry’s Universal Service Fund (USF), which is supposed to be used to introduce telecommunications and broadband services to unserved and underserved areas in the country.
Although this matter was not on the meeting’s agenda, committee members have been pushing the ministry to ask PayPal to introduce services in the country.
While Mr Afzal tried to explain why PayPal was not interested in coming to Pakistan, Senator Mian Mohammad Ateeq Shaikh said PayPal is afraid to come to Pakistan unless there are laws to protect the company’s interests.
Senator Rehman Malik added: “One case of money laundering could cause significant problems for PayPal. PayPal must have the backing of the government that it can secure the interests of the company.”
In response to a question after the meeting about the new telecom licence renewal policy, under which the government is asking Jazz and Telenor for $450 million instead of the previous $291m, IT Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the new policy has to be implemented under the new conditions.
“Since the mobile operators have approached the court on the matter of the licence renewal fee, [it] will be settled through the court. We are looking into it and the problem should be solved soon,” he said.
Jazz went to the Islamabad High Court earlier this month seeking to have the licence renewed according to the original terms and the 2015 Telecom Policy. The licence was issued for Rs16.8 billion (then equivalent to $291m) in 2004 and is now worth Rs41.4bn ($291m today).
Two other mobile operators, Telenor and Warid – which Jazz later acquired – were issued licences through an auction in 2004, and both need to be renewed after 15 years.
Both companies argue that the telecom operators are entitled to renew the licence at the same dollar price at which it was acquired, saying that it should be done “in an equitable, fair and transparent way”.
The committee also took up mobile registration systems, with members arguing that these were inconveniencing users after the two-month grace period to register new handsets expired.
Senator Shaikh raised the issue, saying that blocked handsets are being unblocked on the black market for Rs2,000 to Rs3,000, for mobile phones that would have fetched the exchequer more than Rs30,000.
He also showed committee members and IT ministry officials a receipt to show that someone had gotten their phone unblocked on the black market.
Committee members said the government should do away with taxes on handsets Pakistanis bring from abroad.
“Travelers from abroad should be allowed to bring more than one handset as a gift,” committee chair Senator Robina Khalid said.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority introduced a Device Identification Registration and Blocking System to curtail the sale and use of counterfeit or substandard mobile phones.
Since its inception a year ago, the programme has garnered criticism and raised questions about its effectiveness and the inconvenience it will cause ordinary users.
Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019
PayPal declines to come to Pakistan, IT secretary tells senators - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
Jamal Shahid I Updated May 17, 2019
ISLAMABAD: PayPal will not be coming to Pakistan despite the government’s efforts to convince the American company, which operates a worldwide online payment system that supports online money transfers, to introduce its services in the country, a Senate committee was told on Thursday.
“PayPal did not decline because it has issues operating in Pakistan. Their internal working is such that they are not ready to introduce services in Pakistan,” Ministry of Information Technology Secretary Maroof Afzal told the Senate Standing Committee on IT.
The committee met for a briefing on the IT ministry’s Universal Service Fund (USF), which is supposed to be used to introduce telecommunications and broadband services to unserved and underserved areas in the country.
Although this matter was not on the meeting’s agenda, committee members have been pushing the ministry to ask PayPal to introduce services in the country.
IT standing committee members say govt should end taxes on mobile phones brought from abroad
While Mr Afzal tried to explain why PayPal was not interested in coming to Pakistan, Senator Mian Mohammad Ateeq Shaikh said PayPal is afraid to come to Pakistan unless there are laws to protect the company’s interests.
Senator Rehman Malik added: “One case of money laundering could cause significant problems for PayPal. PayPal must have the backing of the government that it can secure the interests of the company.”
In response to a question after the meeting about the new telecom licence renewal policy, under which the government is asking Jazz and Telenor for $450 million instead of the previous $291m, IT Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the new policy has to be implemented under the new conditions.
“Since the mobile operators have approached the court on the matter of the licence renewal fee, [it] will be settled through the court. We are looking into it and the problem should be solved soon,” he said.
Jazz went to the Islamabad High Court earlier this month seeking to have the licence renewed according to the original terms and the 2015 Telecom Policy. The licence was issued for Rs16.8 billion (then equivalent to $291m) in 2004 and is now worth Rs41.4bn ($291m today).
Two other mobile operators, Telenor and Warid – which Jazz later acquired – were issued licences through an auction in 2004, and both need to be renewed after 15 years.
Both companies argue that the telecom operators are entitled to renew the licence at the same dollar price at which it was acquired, saying that it should be done “in an equitable, fair and transparent way”.
The committee also took up mobile registration systems, with members arguing that these were inconveniencing users after the two-month grace period to register new handsets expired.
Senator Shaikh raised the issue, saying that blocked handsets are being unblocked on the black market for Rs2,000 to Rs3,000, for mobile phones that would have fetched the exchequer more than Rs30,000.
He also showed committee members and IT ministry officials a receipt to show that someone had gotten their phone unblocked on the black market.
Committee members said the government should do away with taxes on handsets Pakistanis bring from abroad.
“Travelers from abroad should be allowed to bring more than one handset as a gift,” committee chair Senator Robina Khalid said.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority introduced a Device Identification Registration and Blocking System to curtail the sale and use of counterfeit or substandard mobile phones.
Since its inception a year ago, the programme has garnered criticism and raised questions about its effectiveness and the inconvenience it will cause ordinary users.
Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2019
PayPal declines to come to Pakistan, IT secretary tells senators - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
all these news r of 2015 ............... pak army is surly more profit oriented than common man. & they have not "sold" any mineral resources, is very hard to digest till date.
they would have easily exchanged mineral resources for weapons from china.......... let Chinese company do the need full.