Latest Draw (41st): The Results of P.B. Rs. 200/- have been announced, draw held at City Faisalabad: 1st Prize of Rs.750,000/- PB# 349928, 2nd Prize of Rs.250,000/- PB# 509493, PB# 695667, PB# 785280, PB# 579777, PB# 139854, Complete results of other prizes are available Soon.

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Updated on: Sat, December 5, 2009, 13:30 (PST) Arrows of currency trend in the chart show forex exchange rates compared with the latest forex exchange rates Following are indicative forex exchange currencies rates Courtesy : ECAP
Remittance	Buying	Selling	Trend
US Dollar DD	0.0	0.0
US Dollar TT	0.0	0.0
Currency Notes
US Dollar	83.45	83.75
Kuwaiti Dinar	285.94	292.46
Malaysian Ringgit	0.0	0.0
Norwegians Krone	14.68	14.89
UK Pound Sterling	137	138
Saudi Riyal	22.02	22.27
Singapore Dollar	0.0	0.0
Swedish Korona	11.99	12.17
Swiss Franc	82.49	83.61
U.A.E Dirham	22.51	22.77
Bahrain Dinar	218.35	221.50
NewZealand $	43.5	43.8
Omani Riyal	213.84	216.99
Australian Dollar	76.16	77.31
Danish Krone	16.68	16.91
Euro	124.50	125.50
Thai Bhat	0.0	0.0
Canadian Dollar	78.10	79.00
Hong Kong Dollar	10.51	10.78
Qatari Riyal	22.54	23.02
Indian Rupee	1.58	1.68
China Yuan	0.0	0.0
Japanese Yen	0.9350	0.9450
Forex Open Market Analysis

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KARACHI: Prices of various varieties of rice have declined by Rs2 to Rs10 per kg, while supply of sugar from the mills has resulted in some stability in its wholesale rates. A wholesale rice trader said that the price of a normal variety fell to Rs48 from Rs50 per kg, while Basmati (ponia) rice is now available at Rs45 as against Rs50 earlier.

He said the new 386 Punjab variety now sells at Rs35 as compared to Rs40 per kg, Kernal Basmati price fell to Rs75 from Rs80 per kg, while Kernal special Basmati rate has declined to Rs90 from Rs100 per kg. A retailer said that Kernal Basmati super rate is now tagged at Rs120 as compared to Rs125 per kg. Irri-6 price

fell to Rs24 from Rs26 per kg while Basmati sela rate plunged to Rs95 from Rs115 per kg. Shopkeepers said that the prices had declined owing to some declining trend in rice exports from July onwards. As a result ample supplies of various varieties of rice had arrived in the local markets. Figures of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) gave a dismal picture of rice export. Pakistan s total rice exports (basmati and others) fell by 33.4 per cent in value during July-Oct 2009, fetching only $537 million (809,872 tons) as compared to $806 million (787,222 tons) in the same period of 2008. Basmati exports fell by 51 per cent in value and 33 per cent in quantity to $240 million (228,991 tons) in July-Oct, 2009 as compared to $488 million (342,350 tons) in the same period of 2008. Exports of other varieties stood at $296 million (580,881 tons) in July-Oct 2009, as compared to $318 million (444,872 tons) in the corresponding period of 2008. However, vice-chairman Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (Reap), Rafiq Suleman said exports had been going up. He claimed that during July-Nov 2009, non-basmati exports went up by 32 per cent to 993,617 tons as compared to 751,770 tons in the same period of 2008. Basmati exports, however, went down slightly by six per cent to 372,686 tons during July-Nov, 2009 as compared to 398,327 tons in the same period of last year. Rafiq added that as exports are picking up, total exports of rice in the current financial year is likely to achieve target of $2.2 billion while in the last fiscal year, exports fetched $2.04 billion. Sugar The wholesale sugar price is now quoted at Rs51-52 per kg as compared to Rs58 per kg a month back but the retailers are not ready to pass on this impact to the consumers. Majority of the retailers are charging Rs60 per kg in many areas, while some are demanding even more than Rs60 per kg. Wholesalers said if the supply of sugar from the sugar mills improves further in coming days, the rates would further fall.

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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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