CAA: stay home, stay safe?
PIA’s journey from ‘great people to fly with’ to ‘sadly no one wishes to fly with’, is a five-decade story. It mimics the systemic institutional derailment (especially of state-owned enterprises)…
Learning from China
About three years ago I was conferred the highest science award of China, the International Science and Technology Collaboration Award by President Xi Jinping at a special ceremony in the…
A crisis can be an opportunity
I hope that the situation Pakistan is currently witnessing will be the worst it gets, with no further escalation. We were already facing a crippling economic crisis, an unprecedented political…
Moody’s: there’s method in its madness
Moody’s Investors Service early this week downgraded Pakistan’s local and foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings by two notches to Caa3 from Caa1 but improved the outlook to…
When Imran wins the election
Fast forward to October, or November – or whenever the government calls the general election – and, ceteris paribus, behold the spectacle of PTI’s (Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf’s) tsunami delivering…
Counting the ways to borrow
Pakistan’s policy thrust today to get out of the ongoing very serious economic/financial imbroglio is, heads: seek more loans at the least possible cost; tails: seek more loans at the…
Pakistan’s exports in the doldrums
Subsidies such as those relating to power tariffs have been the lifelines of our export industry, notably the textile sector. Both of these lifelines are now more or less cut…
Ratings and risks
The global financial system is displaying rising signs of strain, raising concerns over various potential outcomes, ranging from contagion between markets to ruptures in financial products. It is anticipated that…
Foreign inflows at a low ebb
International perceptions of the declining credit worthiness of Pakistan have been augmented by the downgrading of the country’s credit rating by S&P, Fitch, and Moody’s from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. Recently,…
Major negative developments
The downgrading of Pakistan’s credit rating by Moody’s from B3 to Caa1 comes as a big shock. The credit rating agency has cited increased government liquidity and external vulnerability leading…
