Tag: KARACHI

November 19, 2019 (MLN): Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Dr. Reza Baqir, appreciated the banks for their efforts in increasing the bank credit to the agriculture sector, which reached its historical high by end of FY19.

‘It is for the first time in Pakistan’s history that credit to the agriculture sector has surpassed one trillion rupees,’ said the Governor in his keynote address. He was chairing the annual meeting of the Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC) held in Peshawar, KPK as part of SBPs continued efforts to enhance agriculture credit in the underserved provinces and regions.

Dr. Baqir, however, urged the banks to enhance their efforts to achieve qualitative aspects of the assigned targets as well in line with the strategic shift and key policy actions taken by SBP regarding agricultural financing. He highlighted that most of the banks met their assigned targets except for some of the banks including ZTBL, PPCBL, some of the domestic private banks and Islamic banks falling short of achieving their targets. The province wise agriculture credit disbursement witnessed double-digit growth across all provinces and regions; however, banks struggled to achieve their assigned targets in the underserved regions. He urged agriculture lending banks and institutions to scale up their efforts and commitment to ensure achievement of agriculture credit target in the underserved provinces and regions.

The Governor apprised the committee that SBP is considering three policy actions to further promote financial inclusion in the agriculture sector. First, enhancing transparency through disclosure of bank wise performance statistics on monthly basis covering agriculture credit disbursement, geographic distribution, outstanding amount, number of borrowers, and agriculture credit infrastructure.  Second, introducing a comprehensive scoring model for ranking of banks against key agriculture credit indicators and targets. Third, introducing incentives and penalties based on performance scores of banks. Dr. Baqir emphasized that there is a large scope for lending opportunities for banks that support both financial inclusion and banks’ profitability.

The keynote address was followed by a presentation wherein the performance of banks on agricultural financing was reviewed against their targets during FY19. While assigning the agriculture credit target for FY20, it was shared that the overall disbursement target of Rs.1,350 billion has been assigned to banks which is 89% of the total estimated agriculture credit requirement of Rs.1,518 billion. The province wise and sector wise distribution of the target was adopted while considering the provincial agricultural credit requirements, banks’ overall lending capacity and their business expansion plans. It was highlighted that Islamic banks and Islamic branches of commercial banks have been assigned disbursement target of Rs.110 billion in line with previous year to help realize the potential of Islamic agriculture financing. Further, the overall target of outstanding borrowers has been enhanced to 4.67 million with the addition of 650,000 new borrowers.

November 19, 2019 (MLN): With all the buzz surrounding the advent of much-awaited Current Account Surplus after nearly four years, very little thought has been put into what actually made this miracle happen! And thus, by having a thorough look at the details published by PBS, it is clear that the transport group was the scapegoat in this entire scenario.

Quite honestly, the decision to curtail the import within the transport group was inevitable, as the auto sector in Pakistan has not been really making any significant mark with respect to volumetric sales. And quite honestly again, the auto sector cannot be blamed for this as the ongoing economic slowdown has taken a serious toll on its performance.    

The transport group imports during the month of October 2019 amounted to $108.3 million, i.e. around 50.25% less as compared to the imports of the previous month and 56.13% less as compared to the same month of last year.

The cumulative import during the first four months of current Fiscal Year totaled 646.19 million, i.e. down by 37.76% as compared to $1.03 billion recorded in the corresponding period of last year.

Within the transport group, the major curtailment was done in the import of CKD/SKD by 60.16% YoY, followed by Completely Built Units (CBUs) by 59.42% and Build Units by 59.42% during the month of October.

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November 19, 2019: Danish Ambassador Rolf Holmboe on Tuesday called on Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Petroleum Nadeem Babar and offered his country’s support in successful execution of renewable energy projects in Pakistan.

The envoy offered Denmark's unstinted support and cooperation to Pakistan in partnering for successful execution of renewable energy projects with a focus on hybrid solar and wind power plants in Pakistan, a Petroleum Division press release said here.

The visiting dignitary appreciated the reforms being undertaken in energy sector of Pakistan and its resolve to focus on renewable energy and making good progress in this sector.

He also shared proposals for provision of mini/micro power plant technologies.

Denmark is a world leader in renewable energy and eyeing the Pakistani market with active interest. This has also been made possible by the present Government's emphasis on strict implementation of a renewable energy policy.

Nadeem Babar thanked the Danish ambassador for his country's offer of assisting Pakistan in the renewable energy sector.

He appreciated Denamrk's interest in Pakistan's Energy sector and welcomed any possible investments.

The SAPM said Pakistan would also like to collaborate in exploring avenues of transfer of technology in the renewable energy sector, adding it was the objective of the present government to ensure tangible results in Pakistan's renewable energy production during the next 20 years.

APP

 November 19, 2019 (MLN): The KSE-100 index opened 313 points higher than the previous day’s closing point. According to Ismail Iqbal Securities (Pvt.) Ltd, investors were expecting the positive momentum to continue after the current account turned positive with USD 99mn surplus in October 2019, supported by a significant decline in imports and slight growth in exports.

Later, investors chose to book profits. During the session, the index registered an increase of 152 pts and closed at 38,564.

The Index traded in a range of 518.82 points or 1.35 per cent of the previous close, showing an intraday high of 38,910.71 and a low of 38,391.89.

Of the 94 traded companies in the KSE100 Index, 49 closed up 43 closed down, while 2 remained unchanged. The total volume traded for the index was 246.09 million shares.

Sectors propping up the index were Power Generation & Distribution with 103 points, Oil & Gas Marketing Companies with 63 points, Inv. Banks / Inv. Cos. / Securities Cos. with 37 points, Pharmaceuticals with 28 points and Textile Composite with 11 points.

The most points added to the index were by HUBC which contributed 94 points followed by PSO with 33 points, DAWH with 27 points, SNGP with 23 points and FFC with 14 points.

Sector-wise, the index was let down by Tobacco with 34 points, Commercial Banks with 31 points, Fertilizer with 16 points, Refinery with 7 points and Engineering with 5 points.

The most points taken off the index were by PAKT which stripped the index of 34 points followed by ENGRO with 27 points, UBL with 24 points, BAHL with 17 points and POL with 11 points.

All Share Volume decreased by 80.76 Million to 385.32 Million Shares. Market Cap decreased by Rs.12.77 Billion.

Total companies traded were 390 compared to 412 from the previous session. Of the scrips traded 187 closed up, 177 closed down while 26 remained unchanged.

Total trades decreased by 6,180 to 114,347.

Value Traded decreased by 1.45 Billion to Rs.14.06 Billion

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November 19, 2019 (MLN): Pakistani rupee (PKR) closed today's trading session relatively unchanged against the USD with the rate remaing stable at PKR 155.36.

The rupee endured a relatively dull trading session with very little intraday movement, trading in a range of 13 paisa per USD showing an intraday high bid of 155.44 and an intraday Low offer of 155.37.

Within the Open Market, PKR was traded at 154.50/155.60 per USD.

Alternatively, the currency gained 2 paisa against the Pound Sterling as the day's closing quote stood at PKR 201.27 per GBP, while the previous session closed at PKR 201.3 per GBP.

On the other hand, PKR's value weakened by 6 paisa against EUR which closed at PKR 171.94 at the interbank today.

On another note, within the money market, the overnight repo rate towards close of the session was 13.60/13.75 percent, whereas the 1 week rate was 13.30/13.40 percent.

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