FOLLOWING the completion of the ninth-month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), discussions are ongoing between Pakistan and the IMF for a successor programme. Given that Pakistan’s fiscal and external vulnerabilities remain high, another Extended…
THE government recently formed a committee of eminent international and Pakistani economists to draft a home-grown economic programme. This article shows that there is little need for such a committee. There is…
EACH time, Pakistan has to go to the IMF for a new Stand-by Arrangement or even at periodic reviews of perennial ‘stood-us-up’ programmes for the release of the next tranche,…
THE FBR had been publishing its Tax Expenditure Report since 2020. Each report estimates the ‘tax expenditure’, ie, the tax foregone or the revenue loss because of the built-in tax concessions and…
PAKISTAN no longer faces an economic emergency as it did last year when it teetered on the edge of sovereign debt default. It has come out of that crisis and managed…
THERE has been far too much discussion on May 9 in the past week, making the issue as repetitive as our talk show discussions. But then, I do claim to write on…
DESPITE the sweltering heat, there is tremendous energy all around the Galle Face Green, the famous sea front park, close to the presidential secretariat in Colombo. Young people are swarming…
The past few decades have seen a massive overhaul in development thinking. With the wisdom of the Washington consensus by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank questioned,…
Humanity has long suffered from extreme poverty, facing hunger and starvation throughout history. However, the situation has dramatically improved due to scientific and technological revolutions, leading to reduced hunger and…
Frankly, it’s unbelievable (especially to those who don’t live in either country) that Pakistan and India – countries with a collective population of approximately 1.7 billion and with tens of…
