January 5, 2019 (MLN): The latest weekly roundup is here to synthesize the events of the last week as well as to update the financial and economic data releases as they provide a guide to keeping an eye on trends in the upcoming week.

• The Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the Combined Group increased by 0.74% during the week ended Jan 02, 2020, while the SPI increased by 19.84% compared to the corresponding period from last year.
• The government of Pakistan has acquired an additional debt of Rs.1.14 billion during the week ended December 27, 2019, which brings its total net borrowing for the ongoing fiscal year 2020 to Rs.282.82 billion. As of prior week, the government had borrowed a net sum of Rs.281.68 billion.
• The non-government sector has borrowed another net sum of Rs.41.66 billion during the week ended December 27, 2019, which brings the cumulative net borrowing for ongoing fiscal year FY2020 to Rs.127.15 billion. The net borrowing as of prior week was recorded at Rs.85.49 billion.
• Pakistan's Forex Reserves increased by USD 486.20 Million or 2.76% and the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at USD 18,081.40 Million on Dec 27, 2019.
• The total purchase of securities during the week via Special Convertible Rupee Account (SCRA) surpassed total sales by around Rs.1.3 billion as of December 27, 2019.
• The Foreign Investors bought securities worth Rs. 214.3 billion and sold securities worth Rs. 206.3 billion during the year 2019. This resulted in net buying of Rs. 7.9 billion, which in terms of USD translates into $55.7 million.
• Rice Exports in Pakistan remained sturdy as it reached a record level of 4.5 million tons during FY19.
• Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has approved eight projects worth 13 billion rupees.
• In the month of December 2019 cement despatches increased by 10.69 percent to 4.306 million tons from 3.891 million tons in December 2018.
• The government has released Rs 46,302.528 million for under-construction projects of the National Highway Authority (NHA) under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) in the current fiscal year out of the total allocation of Rs154966.835 million till the end of December 2019.
• The government on Tuesday increased the prices of petrol by Rs2.61 per liter with effective from January 1st, 2020.
• The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has increased the locally produced LPG price by Rs 278.48 per cylinder of 11.8 kilograms.
• The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) collected revenues of Rs 2,080 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year ending on December 31^st.
• According to the data shared by the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BEOE) here on Monday, manpower export to Saudi Arabia registered a marked growth of 191 percent in 2019 as compared to the last year when only 100,910 Pakistanis went there.
• Pak rupee has witnessed depreciation of 11.51% against the US dollar in the departing year i.e. CY2019 where the rupee today traded at Rs154.84 against the greenback in the interbank market.
• Pak Rupee's Real Effective Exchange Rate Index (REER) increased by 1.07 percent in November 2019 to a provisional value of 95.82 from the revised value of 94.81 in October 2019.
• The Net Foreign Investment in Pakistan’s debt securities i.e. Treasury bills (T-Bills) and Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs) during July 2019 till December 26, 2019, recorded at USD 1.438 billion, revealed State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)’s latest data.
• The Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) has disbursed Rs33 billion among 623,000 beneficiaries through various projects, besides generating Rs21 billion revenue during the fiscal year 2018-2019.
• Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states still remain the top destinations for Pakistani emigrants as half a million people opted for these countries to get employment in multiple sectors during the last year.
• Wheat crop sowing in the country witnessed about 1.115 percent increase as compared to cultivation during the same period last year as the crop had been cultivated over an area of 7.884 million hectares of land as compared to the sowing of 7.797 million hectares of the same period of last year.

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