The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday further lowered its global economic growth forecast to below 2 per cent amid stubborn higher inflation with a warning that the worst was yet to come. In its World Economic Outlook (WEO) 2023 – Countering the Cost-of-Living Crisis, the global lender of last resort forecast Pakistan’s GDP growth rate at 3.5pc and inflation at around 20pc with a dis
Remittances sent by overseas Pakistanis declined to $2.4 billion in September as the open and grey markets were offering much higher rates than interbank. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday said remittances decreased by 10.5 per cent month-on-month and 12.3pc year-on-year in September. The inflows in August were $2.72bn while they were $2.78bn in September 2021. The central bank sai
The Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday witnessed the revival of investor interest on optimism that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) would maintain status quo in its monetary policy announcement. The market kicked off trading on a positive note and soon the benchmark KSE100 index touched intra-day high of 42,441.29 points. Investor optimism was also fuelled by a statement from Finance Minister Is
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has expressed hope that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will consider the economic hardships being faced by Pakistan in the wake of floods and soften its conditions, as the country is expected to receive $4 billion from multilateral creditors over the next couple of months. Besides, Pakistan has made foreign debt repayment of $4.6 billion so far in the cur
In line with market expectations, Pakistan’s central bank has left its key policy rate unchanged at 15% for the next seven weeks to support economic growth and contain inflation. “Based on currently available information, GDP (gross domestic product/economic) growth could fall to around 2% in the current fiscal year 2022-23 compared to the previous forecast of 3-4% before the floods,” said the Sta