November 03, 2019 (MLN): The financial profile of the country was brought into well-defined summary with the following data releases over the course of the last departed week.

• The Weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the Combined Group increased by 0.18% during the week ended Oct 24, 2019 while the SPI increased by 17.41% compared to the corresponding period from last year.
• Pakistan's Forex Reserves decreased by USD 96.80 Million or 0.64% and the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at USD 15,089.70 Million on Oct 25, 2019.
• Investment in local equity markets by foreign investors took a massive leap, as the net purchase of securities for the week ended October 25, 2019 clocked in at Rs.14.91 billion, i.e. around Rs.13.06 billion higher than last week's numbers.
• Pakistan earned 44.100 million dollars by providing different travel services in various countries during the first two months of the financial year (2019-20).
• Pakistan’s imports from India dropped by 39.47 percent during the first quarter of the current financial year 2019-20, after downgrading of trade relations between the two countries since August this year.
• The export of manpower has risen by 42 percent in October 2019 as some 43,752 went for overseas employment during the corresponding period of 2017.
• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $75 million loan for a project that will help improve the quality, accessibility, and gender responsiveness of the secondary education system and infrastructure in the province of Sindh, home to Pakistan’s financial centre of Karachi.
• The government of Pakistan has acquired an additional debt of Rs.22.95 billion during the week ended October 25, 2019, which brings its total net borrowing for ongoing fiscal year 2020 to Rs.248.32 billion. As of prior week, the government had borrowed a net sum of Rs.225.37 billion.
• The non-government sector has retired another net sum of Rs.13.18 billion during the week ended October 25, 2019, which brings the cumulative net retirement for ongoing fiscal year FY2020 to Rs.42.28 billion. The net retirement as of prior week was recorded at Rs.29.11 billion.
• The Ministry of Planning Development and Reforms has so far given authorization for the release of Rs257.167 billion including Rs53.62 billion foreign aid for various ongoing and new development projects under Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) 2019-20 as against the total allocation of Rs701 billion.
• Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs320 billion revenues during the month of October and maintained overall increase over last year of 16% and domestic tax over 25%.
• The total fertilizer offtake during the month of September 2019 was about 348 thousand tonnes, which represented a decrease of 6.7 percent over September, 2018. The Nitrogen offtake decreased by 11.8 percent, whereas phosphate offtake increased by 10.1 percent. Potash offtake decreased by 31.9 percent.
• The overall Urea offtake during the month of September 2019 stood at 405 thousand tonnes, demonstrating a decline of 16 percent as compared to the corresponding period of last year.
• The overall Dap offtake during the month of September 2019 stood at 210 thousand tonnes, demonstrating an increase of 5.5 percent as compared to the corresponding period of last year.

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