During the outgoing week, capital market witnessed a volatile trend, KSE-100 index rose slightly by 117 points and closed at 38,649 points. This increase was due to china’s inflow of USD 2.1 bln and the potential conditions attached to upcoming IMF package that forced traders to maintain a wait-and-watch approach. Moreover, the departed week remained satisfactory from an economic perspective.

The major developments that took place during the departed week include:   

On Monday, Prime Minister Imran Khan hinted towards a possible discovery of Asia’s largest oil and gas reserves in Karachi’s offshore waters. The PM further said that if the offshore exploration process turns out to be successful, it could bring about an enormous change in Pakistan’s fortunes.

On Tuesday, the state bank of Pakistan conducted an auction in which the Government of Pakistan purchased Rs.26.325 Billion worth of Gop Ijara Sukuk for 3 years on deferred payment basis.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan launched a Rs 80 billion comprehensive poverty alleviation programme “Ehsas” aimed at helping the downtrodden and vulnerable segments of the society, including the poor, orphans, widows, homeless, disabled, undernourished, jobless etc.

On Friday, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA)  sent the summary for petroleum products to the Ministry of Petroleum Division in which it proposed a rise in petroleum product prices by up to Rs 11.91 per liter, HSD by Rs. 11.17 per liter, Kerosene Oil by Rs. 6.65 per liter and light diesel by Rs. 6.5 per liter.

On the upside, Mr. Mingwei Shi in a meeting with Federal Minister for Planning Development & Reform Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, said that Shanghai Electric’s investment in purchasing K-electric is only the beginning and the company is interested to further expand its investment portfolio in power sector of Pakistan.

 On Saturday, chairing a meeting of Karachi Transformation Committee, Prime Minister Imran Khan unveiled a mega development package worth Rs 162 billion to transform Karachi by uplifting its transport, water and sewerage infrastructure.

The statistical data released this week apprising the economic standing of the country are listed below:

• The State Bank of Pakistan has pushed up the policy rate by 50 basis points bringing it to 10.75% for the next two months.
• Pakistan received a sum of $225 million in February 2019 as foreign economic assistance from multiple bilateral and multilateral sources
• Overseas investors indulged in excessive selling in local capital markets during the week ended March 22, 2019. Weekly data on Specially Convertible Rupee Accounts (SCRA) revealed that the net sale of securities logged in at Rs. 366 million
• Non-government sector has borrowed a sum of Rs. 851.7 billion as of March 15, 2019, during the current fiscal year
• Pakistan’s reserves decreased by USD 235.70 Million as the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at USD15,473.9 million on March 22, 2019
• Pakistan’s government sector borrowed an additional net sum of Rs.164.2 billion during the week that ended on March 15, 2019, bringing the total net borrowing of the sector to Rs.940.2 billion for the ongoing fiscal year 2019
• The trade deficit between Pakistan and China, during first eight months (Jul-Feb) of current fiscal year, shrank by 11.93 percent
• The Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) has achieved net target of Rs 225 billion during first eight months (Jul-Feb) 2018-19 as compared to same period of last year’s collection of Rs 96 billion, showing a surge of 126 percent
• Pak Suzuki Motors Company Limited (PSMC) has reported net profit of Rs. 1.2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2018, i.e. approximately 66% lower than the profit of last year
• Overseas Pakistanis have so far contributed around over Rs 1.5 billion while local residents as well as institutions have donated some Rs 8.64 billion to the Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dam fund
• Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Khan Buzdar has said that one hundred and thirteen billion rupees have been paid to Sugarcane farmers in the province.
• The tea imports into the country during July-February (2018-19) were recorded at $393.585 million compared to the imports of $398.041 million in July-February (2017-18), showing decline of 1.12 percent
• Rupee’s Real Effective Exchange Rate index (REER) increased by 0.14% in February 2019, inching up to a provisional value of 103.3124 from the revised value 103.1728 in January 2019.
• The weekly inflation for the combined income group during the week ended on March 28 witnessed a decrease of 0.36 percent as compared to the previous week.

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