Weekly Economic Roundup

May 14, 2022 (MLN): The economic roundup contains the recent economic developments and financial data releases over the course of the week to keep an eye on next week’s trend.

• The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) on Friday raised the distribution price of Regassified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) by up to $6.87 per million metric British thermal units (mmbtu) for the month of May 2022.
• Pakistan’s Large Scale Manufacturing Industries (LSMI) production grew by 26.6% YoY during March 2022 which was the highest YoY increase after May’21.
• The weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the combined consumption group recorded an increase of 0.49% for the week ended on May 12, 2022, mainly due to a sharp increase observed in the prices of essential food items.
• Workers’ remittances crossed the monthly mark of $3 billion for the first time. During April 2022, remittances increased by 11.20% MoM and 11.90% YoY as Pakistan received $2.81bn worth of remittances in the previous month and $2.79bn in April 2021.
• The total liquid foreign exchange reserves held by the country decreased by $178 million or 1.1% WoW to stand at the lowest level of $16.376 billion since Dec 06, 2019, during the week ended on May 06, 2022, compared to $16.553 billion in the previous week.
• Due to keeping the prices of petroleum products unchanged, the amount of price differential claims (PDC) stands around Rs56.9 billion in the fortnight of May.
• Passenger car sales observed a decline of 18% MoM during April 2022, clocking in at 18,625 units as opposed to 22,799 units sold in March 2022.
• The government has so far released funds amounting to over Rs7.761 billion to execute 26 ongoing and 07 new agriculture-related projects under its Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) for financial year 2021-22 in order to promote agriculture and livestock sectors in the country.
• The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) Wednesday cleared four development projects worth Rs136.74 billion.
• Pakistan selected a group of banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. to manage US dollar-denominated bonds, its first since the new government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took the helm after ousting Imran Khan.
• The total sales of Oil and Marketing Companies (OMCs) witnessed an increase of 32% YoY to an almost 4-years high of 2.21 million tons during April 2022.
• The government on Monday increased profit rates on almost all National Savings Schemes (NSSs) by up to 250 basis points, effective from May 10, 2022.
• Foreign exchange inflows through Roshan Digital Account (RDA) have crossed $4bn and reached $4.2 billion by April 2022 since its launch in September 2020, showing the growing confidence of non-residents Pakistanis (NRPs).
• Pakistan's merchandise trade deficit ballooned by 64.79% to stand at $39.36 billion during the first ten months of the current fiscal year, mainly due to an exponential growth in imports and comparatively slow growth in exports

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