ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank has approved a $700 million policy-based loan to restructure Pakistan’s chronically underdeveloped insurance sector, the Manila-based lender said, as Islamabad accelerates a push to modernise financial markets that remain almost entirely dominated by banks.
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Pakistan prepares pump-price relief after Iran peace deal breaks oil’s wartime surge
Pakistan’s petroleum minister signaled that consumers will see relief at the pump as early as this week, as tumbling crude prices in the wake of a US-Iran ceasefire framework give Islamabad room to unwind some of the sharpest fuel-price increases in the country’s recent history.
Pakistan posts $459 million current-account surplus in May as remittances hit record
KARACHI: Pakistan’s current account swung to a surplus of $459 million in May, driven by a record surge in remittances from overseas workers that more than compensated for a persistent goods trade deficit, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Wednesday.
Fitch backs Pakistan’s IMF commitment, warns revenue targets are a record long shot
KARACHI: Pakistan’s Rs18.77 trillion federal budget for the fiscal year beginning in July won a qualified endorsement from Fitch Ratings on Tuesday, with the agency crediting Islamabad’s sustained commitment to fiscal discipline under its $7 billion International Monetary Fund program while warning that the country’s most ambitious revenue targets yet remain vulnerable to the same structural weaknesses that have long plagued its tax administration.
SBP keeps policy rate steady as US-Iran conflict fades but price pressures persist
KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 11.5% on Monday, resisting pressure from industry to ease monetary conditions even as the Gulf conflict that drove its last rate increase shows signs of waning.
SBP seen pausing rate hikes as US-Iran peace deal reshapes oil outlook
KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank faces one of its more unusual policy meetings in recent memory on Monday, convening its Monetary Policy Committee just hours after the United States and Iran announced a peace deal that dramatically altered the geopolitical backdrop that had driven the South Asian nation’s first interest-rate increase in nearly three years.
Finance minister Aurangzeb says budget marks shift from stability to export-led growth
ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Saturday mounted a vigorous defence of his Rs18.77 trillion federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27, saying the government had exhausted the fiscal space available to it in pursuing an ambitious pivot from economic stabilisation toward export-driven growth.
Pakistan budget: Stability preserved, growth deferred
ISLAMABAD: Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presented a Rs18.77 trillion federal budget on Friday that raises defence spending by almost a fifth, set an ambitious revenue target and offers modest tax relief to the salaried middle class — all while leaving the country’s deeper structural failings largely untouched.
Pakistan’s economy hits record size but misses growth target as Middle East conflict bites
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s economy expanded at its fastest pace in four years in fiscal 2026, hitting a record nominal size of $452 billion, yet fell short of the government’s own growth target as a confluence of floods, US tariff uncertainty and an escalating Middle East conflict weighed on output in the second half of the year.
Pakistan remittances hit record $4.3 billion in May, setting up historic annual total
KARACHI: Pakistan received a record $4.3 billion in workers’ remittances in May, the State Bank of Pakistan said Wednesday, driven by surging inflows from the Gulf states and the United Kingdom that have put the country on course for an unprecedented full-year total as it navigates a delicate IMF-backed stabilization program.