Friday, September 11, 2009

LAHORE: The International Monetary Fund either adopts country specific policies on bank mark-up or perhaps deliberately waits for an economy to bog down before suggesting a hike in interest rates as is evident from its advice to keeping current policy rates to India. The inflation in India is on rise it crossed 8 per cent in August with fear that the drought would further impact food prices and inflation. The policy rate in India is 3.5 per cent. Even at such low policy rate IMF has advised India not to increase it on the fear of stalling economic recovery. Pakistan on the other hand is still being pressed to keep a check on its interest rates though the inflation has halved from a peak of 25 per cent last October 2008 to 12 per cent in June 2009. The central bank of Pakistan during this period has decreased its policy rates by 3 per cent from 16 to 13 per cent. This has stifled demand of private sector credit. In fact the private sector has shown negative credit growth during past seven months. Kalpana Kochhar the Asia Pacific Deputy Director of IMF told media at the sidelines of an event that he believes it is too early to withdraw policies that have ensured liquidity and monetary easing in India. He said there are signs of the Indian economy recovering, but it is prudent to wait and see that these signs become well established Kochhar warned that unwinding the stimulus policies would be led by withdrawal of liquidity which would be followed by rate hikes. The most interesting observation he made about increasing inflation in India was that it was supply-driven and it certainly complicates matters. But even then he opined that it has not driven at this point by runaway demand and overheating....

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Friday, September 11, 2009

KARACHI: Pakistani workers living abroad sent home record remittances of $780.53 million in August 2009, showing a jump of 31.78 percent over same month last year, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday. This is the second consecutive month that record remittances have come into the country. In July an amount of $744.85m was received. SBP insists that it s Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI), which was launched recently to bring remittances into the formal loop, has started to show result. But there are no credible data available to substantiate that claim. During the first two months July-August of fiscal year 2009-10, an amount of $1.525bn was sent home by overseas Pakistanis, showing 25 percent rise when compared with $1.219bn received in the same period last year. The monthly average remittances for the period July-August 2009-10 comes out to $762.69m as compared to $609.76m during the same corresponding period of the last fiscal year, registering an increase of 25 percent. Pakistanis living abroad sent home record $7.811 billion during financial year 2008-09, beating the previous annual high of $6.451bn transferred a year before. Remittances have become lifeline for the economy at a time when country s reliance on international lenders has increased to meets its foreign debt liabilities. Industry people offer varied reasons for the increase in remittances. Some say it is a repercussion of global recession, which has cost many expatriates to lose their jobs and now they are transferring their savings back home. But there is no evidence of this happening. On the other hand, bankers say government s action against two big exchange companies has weakened the hawala dealers.....

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Friday, September 11, 2009

KARACHI: Pakistani workers living abroad sent home record remittances of $780.53 million in August 2009, showing a jump of 31.78 percent over same month last year, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday. This is the second consecutive month that record remittances have come into the country. In July an amount of $744.85m was received. SBP insists that it s Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI), which was launched recently to bring remittances into the formal loop, has started to show result. But there are no credible data available to substantiate that claim. During the first two months July-August of fiscal year 2009-10, an amount of $1.525bn was sent home by overseas Pakistanis, showing 25 percent rise when compared with $1.219bn received in the same period last year. The monthly average remittances for the period July-August 2009-10 comes out to $762.69m as compared to $609.76m during the same corresponding period of the last fiscal year, registering an increase of 25 percent. Pakistanis living abroad sent home record $7.811 billion during financial year 2008-09, beating the previous annual high of $6.451bn transferred a year before. Remittances have become lifeline for the economy at a time when country s reliance on international lenders has increased to meets its foreign debt liabilities. Industry people offer varied reasons for the increase in remittances. Some say it is a repercussion of global recession, which has cost many expatriates to lose their jobs and now they are transferring their savings back home. But there is no evidence of this happening. On the other hand, bankers say government s action against two big exchange companies has weakened the hawala dealers.....

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Friday, September 11, 2009

ISLAMABAD: The Planning Commission and the State Bank of Pakistan have divergent views on issues related to micro-finance as the latter has sent an official communication barring the planning managers from intervening in the domain of the central bank, it is learnt. However, the Planning Commission has pointed out that the regulation of the micro credit were not up to the mark, resulting into increasing intermediatory cost of microfinance institutions in the range of over 30 to 40 percent in shape of mark up, which is continuously being charged from small voiceless borrowers. A tug of war persists as the Governor State Bank (SBP) has written official letter to Secretary Planning Division by raising objections on active persuasion of Planning Commission s Social Sector Initiative to plunge into the affairs of the microfinance by arguing that it was not jurisdiction of the PC to interfere into the matters of financial sector.
The Planning Commission high-ups say that the operation side of microfinance definitely lies under the jurisdiction of the SBP. However, its policy side falls into the mainstay of the Planning Commission and it will continue to give its input for formulating the upcoming National Micro Credit Policy. Talking to The News on Thursday, Secretary Planning Commission Ashraf M Hayat said that the poverty is the main concern of the Planning Commission as it wanted to devise policies in order to tackle this menace effectively. The Planning Commission s Member Social Sector, Shaukat Hameed, when contacted, said that they were working on microfinance institutions for last six months where they found flaws in regulations. We are giving our recommendation to rectify the situation, he added.

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Friday, September 11, 2009

NEW YORK: The euro rose versus the dollar on Thursday, hitting a new high for 2009 after a report showed a drop in the number of new US jobless claims last week. Analysts said the improvement in the weekly labor data supports investors recent demand for riskier investments in stocks, commodities and other currencies. The US dollar tends to benefit from higher risk aversion in global markets as it is perceived as a safe-haven asset and sells off when appetite for risk increases. The jobless claims data looks like a pretty healthy improvement from the previous week. We saw a healthy decline in both the initial claims number and the continued claims component of the report, said Omer Esiner, a senior market analyst at Travelex Global Business Payments in Washington. What we re seeing this morning is a little bit of an improvement in risk appetite. As a result, the US dollar is falling once again pretty much across the board, Esiner said.

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Friday, September 11, 2009

LAHORE - The Punjab government has ample sugar stock but it is, on the one hand, farmers, millers, stockists, dealers and shopkeepers who are hell bent on fleecing money while on the other, panic buying among consumers putting a damper on efforts to stabilise sugar price and streamline the supplies. These were the views of members of inspection teams deployed to raid Sasta Ramazan Bazaars in the City on Wednesday.

Tehsildar Assad Butt while in surprise raid in Shalamar Sasta Ramazan Bazaar found many people carrying more than allotted quota of sugar. He himself has taken back sugar bags of one kilo from many consumers who were found possessing with more than allotted sugar. He said after the fresh instructions of Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif, only one kilo sugar is being sold to all individuals after punching their respective newly Identity Cards but people use to come out with all their family members to purchase sugar. He said earlier, chemical ink was used on sugar purchaser s thumb but few minutes after they came back after removing the ink. Now government has given us instruction to punch cards, he added.

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