Index up 160 points at open

Pakistan’s benchmark Index, KSE – 100, today opened the day on a relatively positive note after it gained more than 160 points in the first thirty minutes. The index is currently trading at 44012.99 points with volumes at 13.555 million.

Pakistan’s Total Forex Reserves reached $17.286 billion falling by 2.41 percent, with State Bank’s reserves going down by more than 3 percent during the outgoing week. Furthermore, Net Foreign Reserves held by Banks also went down by 1.27 percent.

On the other hand, Central Bank also released the remittance numbers for first ten months of fiscal year 2018 which clocked in at $16.3 billion, reflecting a 3.9 per cent increase over the corresponding period of FY17. In the major contributors to the inflows, remittances from Saudi Arabia shrank by 9 percent to $4.09 billion during July-April fiscal year 18.

In addition to that, Sindh Government also present the Sindh budget for 2018- 19 with higher receipts and expenditures, but a lower deficit from the outgoing fiscal year, while the budget did not introduce any new taxes. According to the budget documents, Revenues are expected to increase by 13 percent, despite no new taxes. The documents reveal that the additional revenue of Rs. 107 billion is largely coming from an expected increase in federal transfers and sales tax collected by the provincial revenue authorities, as well as a slew of miscellaneous “other taxes”, such as on electricity, property and stamp duty.