June 07, 2020 (MLN): The latest weekly economic roundup provides a summary of the key economic and financial developments from the preceding week.

• The Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the Combined Group decreased by 0.42% during the week ended Jun 04, 2020 while the SPI increased by 9.17% compared to the corresponding period from last year.

• Pakistan's trade deficit for 11 months (July-May) FY20 was USD 21.06 billion compared to a deficit of USD 29.15 billion from the corresponding period from FY19.

• Pakistan's Forex Reserves decreased by USD 1,677.80 Million or 9.02% and the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at USD 16,920.10 Million on May 29, 2020.

• The pace of foreign selling from Pakistan’s debt market slowed down by Rs 5.92 billion during the week ended May 29, 2020. The overseas investors pulled out Rs 1.18 billion from the local markets via SCRA, marking the 14^th straight week of net selling.

• Foreign Investors dumped around Rs. 20 billion worth of securities via Specially Convertible Rupee Accounts (SCRA) during the week ended May 22, 2020, which is around 60.5 percent higher than the figures recorded last week.

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Pakistan signed the loan agreement for a $300 million emergency assistance loan initially approved by the bank on 19 May.

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Pakistan signed an agreement with the grant agreement of $5.28 to expand support for Pakistan’s response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province through the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF).

• The government has distributed Rs 200 billion raised through Islamic Sukuk II amongst the power companies to ease out the liquidity crunch the energy sector of the country is facing.

• Cabinet Committee on Energy has approved in principle to import Euro-V compliant diesel and petrol products.

• The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has set up a body headed by Special Assistant to Prime Minister for Petroleum Mr Nadeem Babar to explore various call options for hedging prices for the petroleum products imported by Pakistan.

• Central Development Working Party (CDWP) approved 07 projects worth Rs.24 billion and recommended the 01 project worth Rs. 11.35 billion to ECNEC for consideration.

• The non-government sector has retired a net sum of Rs.30.55 billion during the week ended May 15, 2020, which brings the cumulative net borrowing for ongoing fiscal year FY2020 to Rs.254.31 billion. The net borrowing as of prior week was recorded at Rs.284.85 billion.

• The government of Pakistan has acquired an additional debt of Rs.309.5 billion during the week ended May 22, 2020, which brings its total net borrowing for the ongoing fiscal year 2020 to Rs.1781.51 billion. As of prior week, the government had borrowed a net sum of Rs.1472.02 billion.

• The impact of the construction package announced by the government is yet to be seen as the domestic cement uptake declined by a massive 37.63 percent to 2.27 million tons in May 2020 from 3.64 million tons in May 2019.

• Foreign companies operating in Pakistan repatriated $190.4 million in profit and dividends on investments in the country during the month of April’20 which was 6.2x higher than the profits repatriated in the previous month and 1% higher than that of repatriated in April’19.

• The rate on National Saving Schemes (NSS) has been cut in the range of 48 to 90 basis points, with effect from June 2, 2020.

• The Federal Cabinet has approved the export of locally manufactured personal protective equipment, including sanitizers and other things.

• Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) witnessed a 39% increase in volumetric sales of petroleum products, reached to 1.48 million tons in May’20 over April’20 as the easing of lockdown restrictions kicked in along with a substantial reduction in POL price, bringing industry volumes for 11MFY20 to 14.5 million tons.

• Pakistan's information technology (IT) and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances comprising of computer services and call center services have surged to US $1.003 billion at a growth rate of 23.42% over the first 10 months of Financial Year 2019-20 (July – April), in comparison to US $812.648 during the same period in FY 2018-19.

• The government has released a sum of Rs 69,567.359 million for various water resource projects under the annual Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the fiscal year 2019-20 so far.

• The federal government has so far authorized the release of Rs 583 billion for various ongoing and new social sector uplift projects under its Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2019-20, as against the total allocation of Rs701 billion.

• The price of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) has been reduced by Rs. 2 per kg to Rs. 110 rupees per kg.

• The revenue collection by the Federal Board of Revenue increased by 7.7 percent during the first eleven months of the current fiscal year as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

• The petrol prices have been reduced from Rs81.58 per liter to Rs74.52 per liter, said a press statement issued by the ministry here adding that the new prices would be applicable from June 1, 2020.

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