Oil prices struggled to find their footing in Asian trade on Thursday after easing in the previous session on the back of a weakening global demand outlook. Brent crude futures dropped seven cents, or 0.1 per cent, to $92.38 a barrel by 0310 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 21 cents at $87.06 a barrel, or 0.2pc. Both Opec and the US Energy Department have cut their demand outlo
Saudi Arabia rejected as “not based on facts” criticism of an Opec+ decision last week to cut its oil production target despite United States objections and said Washington’s request to delay the cut by a month would have had negative economic consequences. The Opec+ decision was adopted through consensus, took into account the balance of supply and demand and was aimed at curbing market volati
A new World Bank report says that aggregate productivity in Pakistan has been stagnant or declining during the past decade, mostly driven by firms and farms becoming less productive over time. The World Bank report, titled “From Swimming in Sand to High and Sustainable Growth” focuses on growth in Pakistan, and key aspects of its proximate determinants: productivity, capital and talent accumul
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) registered 2,434 new companies in September, showing a month-on-month increase of 9 per cent. The total number of registered companies now stands at 178,733. The SECP said 55 new companies have foreign investors from Afghanistan, China, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia
Despite a 14 per cent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar, the prices of three major petroleum products, including high-speed diesel (HSD), are estimated to go up by Rs5 to 12 per litre and that of petrol to drop by almost Rs11 per litre on Oct 15 for next fortnight if the government maintains existing tax rates. Based on existing tax rates, the ex-depot price of petrol has been estima