MPC clearly in a dilemma about how to respond to policy rate question
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is set to announce its monetary policy decision today. Over the past six reviews, the central bank has slashed interest rates by a cumulative…
Policy rate caution
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the current economic team of the government of Pakistan must stop hiding behind a veil of overly cautious monetary policies. The latest Monetary…
Weapons over welfare?
Sensitive to its threat perceptions and evolving geostrategic environment in the Indian Ocean, and cognizant of the resource constraints, the Pakistan Navy has been steadily developing its combat capacity. This…
Move towards better policymaking
According to a recent analysis of Scimago, the world’s leading database of scholarly literature and analytics, Pakistan has witnessed remarkable advancements in the last twenty years in international research rankings…
Towards a sound fiscal policy
There are four essential elements of a sound fiscal regime. The first is to grow the income base from which tax revenue is derived. This is achieved by a well-aligned…
Banking on missteps: latest tax policy will distort financial system
One of the more short-sighted fiscal measures recently introduced is the higher tax on banking income from government securities. This tax is directly linked to the advance-to-deposit ratio (ADR), imposing…
Pakistan’s green energy leap
Energy plays a vital role in sustainable economic growth and development. Over the last couple of years, climate change has played havoc socio-economically and so Pakistan has started a major…
Land-use policy
THE media is full of real estate ads offering plots of land, condominiums, apartments, one-unit houses, holiday homes, farmhouses, commercial spaces, etc, in many locations in the country. The use…
The quest for cheap electricity
Rising in the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region of China near Lake Mapam, Indus River or Sindhu Darya is world’s one of the longest rivers (nearly 2,000 miles). It unites with the salty waters of the Arabian Sea,…
Climate change, austerity policy, and IMF programme
Pakistan is likely to enter into an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme – which is different from a standby arrangement (SBA) programme since, in addition to targeting macroeconomic stabilisation, including…
