The Bank of Japan’s influential deputy governor said on Wednesday the central bank will not hike interest rates when markets are unstable, playing down the chance of a near-term hike in borrowing costs. The remarks by Shinichi Uchida, which contrasted with Governor Kazuo Ueda’s hawkish comments made last week when the BOJ unexpectedly raised interest rates, boosted Japan’s Nikkei share average and sent the yen sharply lower. On Monday, stock markets tumbled with Japanese shares at one point exceeding their 1987 “Black Monday” loss, as fears of an interest rate hike and a US recession sent investors fleeing from risk while wagering…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
KARACHI: The grey currency market — which functions outside the ambit of regular remittances channels — has reemerged due to an uptick in the smuggling of dollars to neighbouring countries, experts have said. The market is attracting about $500 million per month by offering an exchange rate of Rs4 per dollar higher than the official rate, according to the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan General Secretary, Zafar Paracha. “The grey market is offering about Rs284 per US dollar. The rate is higher by Rs4 per dollar compared to the open market rate of Rs280,” he said. According to currency dealers,…
KARACHI: Policy Research and Advisory Council (PRAC) Chairman Mohammad Younas Dagha has urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to bring down its policy rate to 17.5 per cent from 19.5pc. He said this would keep the real interest rate positive within a range of 2.4-3.4pc, as per the International Monetary Fund’s requirement. According to a PRAC press release issued on Tuesday, Mr Dagha said the government’s target of 3.6pc real GDP growth is achievable only if the real interest rate is lower than the projected growth rate, ensuring sustainable debt levels. The FY25 budgetary measures are expected to increase…
Pakistan Railways (PR) is looking to outsource the commercial operation of 22 more trains. However, previous experiences, such as a leading firm’s failure to run the Business Express due to financial constraints, raise concerns about the possibility of the plan’s success. Additionally, another firm stopped operating the Bahauddin Zakaria Express (Multan-Karachi-Multan) for administrative, financial and technical reasons. In the latest development, PR has decided to readvertise tenders to outsource trains. This decision was made as only three companies participated and showed interest, offering less than the benchmarked amount. The department found it impossible to proceed with these three firms under the Public…
KARACHI: Pakistani shares on Tuesday staged a partial recovery of staggering overnight losses as global equities bounced back a day after world markets rattled on fears of a US recession. Ahsan Mehanti of Arif Habib Corporation said stocks closed higher, led by second and third scrips, amid a recovery in global equities and strong corporate earnings. He added that the discovery by the Pakistan Oilfield at the TAL block and a surge in international crude oil prices also helped the index stay in the green. Topline Securities Ltd said equities experienced recovery, mirroring the trends of international markets. Hub Power gained on…
DHAKA: There was jubilation and also lingering anger on the streets of Dhaka after mass protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country, but many worried what would happen next. “We are free now — we have won!” said Syed Tanveer Rahman, 30, an activist in the movement that began as protests against quotas giving government jobs to people seen as Hasina allies, but morphed into mass demonstrations against her rule. “We began the movement to make the government’s recruitment tests fairer, but it has turned into a commitment to reform our whole system and make it fairer for all,” Rahman said.…
CAIRO: Hamas named its Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar as successor to former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, the group said on Tuesday. Analysts see the appointment as a move that reinforces the radical path pursued since the Oct 7 raid. Sinwar has been in hiding in Gaza, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of the latest conflict. “The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announces the selection of commander Yahya Sinwar as the head of the political bureau of the movement, succeeding the martyr, commander Ismail Haniyeh. May Allah have mercy on him,” the movement said in a brief statement.…
WASHINGTON: A Pakistani national — with alleged ties to Iran — was charged in a New York federal court on Tuesday over a plot to assassinate a US politician, and other officials on American soil. Although CNN quoted an official as saying that ex-president Donald Trump and other current and former government officials were the intended targets of the plot, the White House clarified there was no connection between this matter and the assassination attempt against the Republican presidential nominee in Butler, Pennsylvania. The criminal complaint, unsealed in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, announced the arrest and charging of Asif Raza Merchant, 46,…
Rescue teams were working to free people trapped after part of a hotel collapsed in western Germany, killing one person and burying another eight, authorities said on Wednesday. Emergency services have already rescued one man, a child, and two women from the building on Wednesday morning, a police spokesman told AFP. The person who died has not yet been recovered, the spokesman added. A floor in the hotel in Kroev, a town some 110 kilometres west of Frankfurt, collapsed for unknown reasons around 11:00 pm local time on Tuesday, police said in a statement. Of the 14 people inside at the…
The Israeli army has been using Amazon’s cloud service and artificial intelligence (AI) tools from Microsoft and Google for military purposes amid the increasing amount of data on Palestinians and Gaza, according to reports by +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. An audio recording they obtained reveals that Col Racheli Dembinsky, commander of the Israeli army’s Center of Computing and Information Systems Unit, disclosed the use of these technologies during a presentation to around 100 military and industrial personnel on July 10. The Center of Computers and Information Systems oversees all data processing for the Israeli army. Dembinsky’s presentation, the…
