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Deposits from China Mobile against license renewal fees to contribute to economy: PTA
December 6, 2019 (MLN): China Mobile (CMPak) has deposited Rs 37.16 billion (equivalent to US$ 238.6 Million) against its license renewal fee with PTA.
Through an official social account, PTA Pakistan said in a tweet the license renewal proceeds have been deposited in Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF).
In line with the above tweet, it was further said the recent deposits from Cellular Mobile Operators against license renewal fees to the tune of more than Rs 107 billion would provide support to the national exchequer as well as to the economy, showing the positive contribution by telecom sector & efforts of PTA.
Copyright Mettis Link News
OMO Result: SBP Injects Rs.300.00 Billion for 7 Days
Dec 06, 2019 (MLN): The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) conducted an Open Market Operation on Friday in which it injected Rs.300.00 Billion into the market for 7 Days.
| Amount* | Rate | Bids | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenor | Type | Offered | Accepted | High - Low | Accepted | Offered | Accepted |
| 7D | Reverse Repo (Injection) | 403.000 | 300.000 | 13.34 - 13.29 | 13.30 | 14 | 13 |
| Total amount offered at 13.30% was Rs. 190,500.00 mio out of which SBP accepted Rs. 102,500.00 mio on pro-rata basis. | |||||||
| OMO Settlement: same day December 06, 2019 | |||||||
| *Amount in Billions | |||||||
Copyright Mettis Link News
Ghani Chemical Industries commences the commercial operations
December 6, 2019 (MLN): Ghani Global Holdings Limited (GGL) via notification to PSX has informed that the third 110TPD plant of Ghani Chemical Industries Limited, the subsidiary of the company, has successfully begun the operations for manufacturing of industrial and medical gases.
Copyright Mettis Link News
ADB approves $300 million loan for Energy Sector Reforms and Financial Sustainability Programs
December 6, 2019 (MLN): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today approved a $300 million policy-based loan that will help the Government of Pakistan to address financial sustainability, governance, and energy infrastructure policy constraints in Pakistan’s energy sector.
The financing will support the first of three subprograms totalling $1 billion under the Energy Sector Reforms and Financial Sustainability Program, a key component of a comprehensive multi-donor economic reform program led by the International Monetary Fund that aims to put Pakistan’s economy on the path to sustainable and inclusive growth after a deterioration in its fiscal and financial position in recent years.
“The cash shortfall across the power supply chain in Pakistan, also known as circular debt, has shot up to more than $10 billion and is a longstanding chronic issue ailing the country’s power sector,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Mr Werner Liepach. “A comprehensive and realistic Circular Debt Reduction Plan, assisted by ADB in close coordination with other development partners, is the cornerstone of this subprogram. The plan aims to drastically cut the new flows of circular debt and provides policy directions on addressing accumulated circular debt.”
While Pakistan has made a significant effort in recent years to expand its electricity generation capacity and stabilize supply, the country is yet to overcome the challenge of inefficiencies, distortions, and uneven reform progress in the sector. These inefficiencies were estimated to have cost the country’s economy up to $18 billion, or 6.5% of gross domestic product, in 2015.
The energy reform program aims to address the underlying causes of circular debt with a focus on improving inadequate tariff and subsidy systems, strengthening energy accounting, and reducing generation costs.
ADB will finance the program with support from its development partners. The Export-Import Bank of Korea has confirmed it will provide $80 million in co-financing for the first subprogram.
Strategic Engagement Plan will help improve Pak-EU ties: FM
December 6, 2019: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi says Strategic Engagement Plan will play an important role in improving bilateral relations and economic cooperation with European Union.
Speaking at a luncheon arranged for EU member countries' ambassadors in Islamabad on Thursday, he said this plan will help to increase the volume of trade and people to people contacts.
The Foreign Minister said EU is the largest trading partner of Pakistan.
The Foreign Minister apprised the ambassadors about Pakistan's efforts in the Afghan peace process.
The Ambassadors appreciated Pakistan's role in bringing stability to its western neighbour.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi expressed hope that due to positive economic indicators, the EU will continue Pakistan's GSP Plus status.
He asked the EU ambassadors to review travel advisory to Pakistan in view of improved security and peace situation in the country.
Radio Pakistan
ADB approves $1 billion in emergency budget support to Pakistan
December 6, 2019: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today approved $1 billion in immediate budget support to Pakistan to shore up the country’s public finances and help strengthen a slowing economy.
The quick dispersing Special Policy-Based Loan is part of a comprehensive multi-donor economic reform program led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stabilize Pakistan’s economy after a major deterioration in its fiscal and financial position in mid-2018 caused growth to slump and threatened progress in alleviating poverty.
ADB’s financing was approved after the government implemented a series of IMF-supported reforms and actions to improve its current account deficit, strengthen its revenue base, and protect the poor against the social impact of the economic crisis.
“ADB is committed to providing wide-ranging support to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and reduce the risk of external economic shocks,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Mr Werner Liepach. “These funds will meet the government’s emergency financing needs to prevent significant adverse social and economic impacts and lay the foundations for a return to balanced growth.”
Pakistan is facing significant economic challenges on the back of a large balance of payments gap and critically low foreign exchange reserves together with weak and unbalanced growth. While the country’s economy has a history of boom and bust economic cycles, it reached a tipping point in 2018 after foreign investment shrank sharply in an uncertain political and global economic environment and the ongoing poor performance of state-owned enterprises caused public debt to reach unsustainable levels.
In July, the IMF approved a three-year $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to finance the government’s economic reform program that aims to put Pakistan’s economy on the path of sustainable and inclusive growth. The EFF is expected to catalyze at least $38 billion in financing from Pakistan’s development partners. ADB has committed to providing a total of $2.1 billion in policy-based lending during the fiscal year 2019–2020 to support the reform program.
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. In 2018, it made commitments of new loans and grants amounting to $21.6 billion. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.
Marathon OPEC meeting breaks up without agreement
December 06, 2019: A meeting of the OPEC group of major oil-exporting countries broke up late Thursday without agreement on cutting production to head off pressure on prices from abundant reserves and slowing global economic growth.
The producers had been mulling cuts above their previous agreement to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day from October 2018 levels.
That deal was originally fixed in December last year and extended at OPEC's last meeting in July.
After more than six hours of talks on Thursday, delegates meeting in Vienna were unable to sign off on the details of an agreement on how further cuts should be shared out.
Ministers were unusually tight-lipped as they filed out of Thursday's meeting in the Austrian capital.
Asked whether the assembled producers had reached agreement, Venezuelan Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo said simply: "Tomorrow".
On Friday, OPEC will reconvene with the so-called OPEC+ group of partners, chief among them the world's second-largest producer Russia.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said a preliminary gathering of ministers had recommended an additional cut of 500,000 barrels per day be considered for the first quarter of 2020.
Before the meeting, observers had speculated that production cuts and a boost to prices might suit Saudi Arabia as it launched the landmark IPO of its national oil company Aramco.
The initial stock offering was the largest ever, raising $25.6 billion, two sources told AFP.
However, Edward Moya, an analyst at Oanda, told AFP that the new cuts would be "more of a housekeeping move that will narrow the gap between (producers') current target and the overcompliance we have seen from the alliance".
Saudi Arabia has stayed within the quota it was assigned under the current deal even while other producers -- including Russia -- have been exceeding theirs.
- 'Burn injustice, not oil' - A forbidding global economic context means that oil producers have been left with little room for manoeuvre as they seek to support prices.
A trade war with the US is slowing growth in China, normally an avid consumer of oil, and the European economy is barely expanding.
Meanwhile, output by oil producers outside OPEC is breaking records: the US has been the world's biggest producer since 2018, Brazil and Canada have also increased output and others such as Norway are planning to do so.
According to the latest US estimates, its total domestic stocks now stand at an enormous 452 million barrels.
Prices have held relatively steady since the last OPEC meeting, with a barrel of Brent crude hovering around the $60 mark, apart from a spike in September sparked by attacks on Saudi oil installations.
While that is a comfortable price for the likes of Russia, whose 2019 budget is based on a price of around $42 a barrel, it is too low for countries such as Saudi Arabia.
After a marked rise on Wednesday in expectation of the OPEC meeting, oil prices were more subdued on Thursday.
With trading ending before the decision was reached, the European benchmark of Brent was up 0.6 percent while its American counterpart WTI was unchanged at $58.43 dollars.
Ahead of Thursday's meeting, dozens of climate change activists gathered outside OPEC headquarters in a silent protest, holding banners that read: "Burn injustice not oil" and "Fossil fuels have got to go".
OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo -- who called climate change activists the "greatest threat" to the oil industry during the organisation's last meeting in July -- received several of them, insisting that "there are no climate change deniers in OPEC".
AFP/APP
Trade hopes lift Asia markets but investors eye deadline
December 06, 2019: Optimism over the China-US trade talks kept Asian markets buoyant on Friday, with investors betting the two will eventually sign a partial deal, though they remain nervous as next week's deadline for fresh tariffs draws closer.
Sentiment across trading floors has ebbed and flowed through the week as observers try to gauge the state of play in the long-running negotiations, with both sides making positive, then negative comments on the outlook.
Donald Trump caused upheaval by saying he would be happy if a pact was not signed until after next November's elections, reimposed tariffs on Argentina and Brazil and threatened France with 100 percent levies over a digital tax.
The passage of a House of Representatives bill in support of minority Uighurs in China also riled a Beijing still angry at Trump's decision to pass a law backing Hong Kong protesters.
But talks appear back on track after reports US officials were hopeful an agreement would be signed, while the president said Thursday things were "moving along well".
The latest soundings allowed investors to return to the buying that has helped propel global markets for weeks, sending Wall Street to multiple records.
Hong Kong climbed one percent, Tokyo ended the morning 0.3 percent higher, and Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney each gained 0.2 percent.
Seoul jumped 0.8 percent and Taipei put on 0.4 percent, while Jakarta and Wellington were also higher.
Investors remain on edge just over a week until December 15 -- the day on which the US is due to impose tariffs on more China goods.
"Things are looking modestly positive, but that can change on a dime," Michael Reynolds, investment strategy officer at Glenmede Trust, told Bloomberg News.
"We're expecting trade to dominate the narrative for the next week and a half as we approach that December 15 deadline." - 'No choice but to act' - Still, analysts say progress in the talks is key for both sides.
The next round of tariffs "will punish the US consumer as prices of children's toys, laptops, and other electronics will jump higher", said Edward Moya at OANDA.
"It could be political suicide in some battleground states if Trump went forward with these next rounds of tariffs." He added that that while traders were hopeful the US will not go ahead with the levies, markets "are sceptical we will see a phase-one deal this side of the Christmas holiday".
Investors are also keeping a close eye on events in Washington after top Democrat Nancy Pelosi gave the green light to draft articles of impeachment against Trump, saying his alleged abuse of power "leaves us no choice but to act".
Oil prices ticked lower after a meeting of OPEC and other major producers led by Russia broke up without a solid agreement on cutting output further.
They had been considering cuts above their previous agreement to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day from October 2018 levels but could not finalise a figure after six hours of talks.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said a preliminary gathering of ministers had recommended an additional 500,000 barrel-per-day reduction for the first quarter of 2020. But analysts said that disappointed markets who had been hoping for more.
Also on the radar is the release later in the day of key US jobs data that will provide a fresh snapshot of the world's top economy and could help dictate Federal Reserve monetary policy and possibly Trump's trade moves.
AFP/APP
Major US, global cities slowing amid worldwide slump: report
December 06, 2019: The blockbuster growth in the world's major cities in recent years will slow sharply in 2020 and 2021 as the global trade slowdown takes its toll, according to new research.
Nine of the top 10 biggest global cities will slow next year, with the stars of the US Silicon Valley showing the most dramatic signs of slamming on the brakes, Oxford Economics researchers found in a report provided to AFP.
Looking further ahead, while China's metropolitan areas have borne the brunt of the trade conflict, they will bump US cities out of the top 10, the latest annual Global Cities Outlook said.
"The current slowdown in the global economy is impacting on the world's major cities," the report said. "Of the top 900, we expect that just under two-thirds, 586, will experience slower growth in 2020-21 than in the past five years." And Richard Holt, head of Oxford's Global Cities Research team, said the trade war's impact and slowing commerce overall goes beyond manufacturing.
Many cities are hit indirectly because "anytime anyone does a trade deal... there's a good chance an insurance deal will be done related to that in either New York or London," Holt told AFP.
- London's lone recovery - "It's a combination of China slowing down for its own reasons and the trade war, and in the short-term the problem in European manufacturing, and in particular the German car industry, are all coming together simultaneously," Holt said.
Some cities, such as Munich and Beijing, are cooling due to domestic economic factors.
London is the lone top-10 city expected to post a modest improvement, after falling sharply due to Brexit concerns. The report projects it will recover slightly to 2.1 percent a year in 2020-21 "from its sub-standard growth of 1.5 percent a year in 2018-19." Most of the cities are tracking growth rates of their national economies, and Oxford economists use country-level GDP to calculate city growth rates, while factoring in demographics and other issues particular to each municipality.
Oxford projects the US economic growth to slow to 1.6 percent next year, and 1.8 percent in 2021, while China dips to 5.7 percent and 5.6 percent, and the UK to 1.0 and 1.9 percent.
- Silicon slump - American high tech cities, which have outstripped US growth in recent years, will be the hardest hit by the cooling expansion.
San Jose will see its growth rate cut in half in coming years from 8.6 percent in 2017 to 3.2 percent in 2020, the report projects.
However, for Silicon Valley, the issues go beyond the global trade war. Rising housing prices have pushed up wages and made other areas such as Austin and Portland more attractive.
In Asia, China's largest four metropolitan areas (Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai) grew by more than 10 percent a year in the past decade, but growth rates will slow to around six percent in the next two years.
India's booming cities remain at the top of the heap, with the fastest growth rates on the globe, but they are also much smaller than other major cities.
Looking ahead to 2035, six of the current cities in the top 10 by GDP will still be there, and the top four -- New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and London -- will all retain their places, the report says.
But Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will knock out Osaka, San Francisco, Dallas and Washington, although all will stay within the top 16.
AFP/APP
Digitalization to help providing jobs to youth: PM
December 6, 2019: Prime Minister launched 'Digital Pakistan Vision' in Islamabad yesterday. Addressing the ceremony, he said the government will concentrate on taking the country digitally forward.
Terming it a big opportunity for the nation, he said digitalization will help in providing jobs to our youth and spur their creative abilities.
The Prime Minister regretted that earlier governments did not work on making the country digitally advanced.
He said we are going to introduce the e-governance in government departments to eradicate corruption from the country. He said the e-governance in public sector institutions will help accelerate the processes and provide facilitation to the public.
The Prime Minister expressed determination that any resistance in the digitalization of the economy will be overcome.
Imran Khan said our government inherited record fiscal, trade and current deficits with rupee facing pressure and institutions in disarray.
He said with the hard work and tough decisions taken, the situation of the economy has improved and has been acknowledged by international financial institutions.
Meanwhile, Digital Pakistan Vision sets Pakistan's digital ambition and has been designed for the government and the private sector to work towards a digitally progressive and inclusive country.
The vision brings together multiple initiatives that the government has already kicked off, and identifies additional focus areas that it will initiate in the coming months.
Its strategic pillars include access and connectivity, digital infrastructure, digital skilling and literacy, innovation and entrepreneurship.
These pillars, supported by a forward-looking policy and a broader legal framework, will set us on the path to becoming a truly Digital Pakistan.
Radio Pakistan
