ISLAMABAD: The government has settled on June 10 to present its federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27, locking in the date after coalition consultations produced a rare show of cross-party consensus on spending priorities — even as the administration navigates the twin pressures of IMF compliance and the resistance of provinces unwilling to subordinate their development ambitions to national fiscal targets.
Economy
PM Sharif pushes for fast-track implementation of China deals after $7 billion investment conference
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pressed China’s ambassador on Wednesday to accelerate implementation of agreements reached during last month’s state visit to Beijing, singling out the next phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and a $7 billion slate of corporate deals as priorities demanding urgent action.
OGDCL strikes oil in Sindh after reviving abandoned exploratory well
KARACHI: Pakistan’s state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd. made a fresh hydrocarbon discovery in Sindh province after engineers rescued a suspended exploratory well using an unconventional partnership with a local university — a find analysts say will add roughly Rs1.67 per share to annual earnings.
US revives tariff push against 60 nations, including Pakistan, citing forced labour as trade distortion
KARACHI: The US Trade Representative proposed new tariffs on imports from 60 economies — spanning trade giants including China, India, the European Union and Pakistan — alleging widespread failures to prohibit goods made with forced labor, as the Trump administration moves to reassemble its trade enforcement agenda after a series of legal reversals.
Business confidence in Pakistan slumps as Mideast conflict freezes investment plans
KARACHI: Foreign investors and businesses operating in Pakistan are shelving expansion plans at an accelerating pace, rattled by the Middle East conflict’s knock-on effects on inflation, fuel costs and supply chains — a deterioration in sentiment that arrives at an especially uncomfortable moment for a government days away from presenting its annual budget.
Electricity tariff set for Rs1.74/unit hike after LNG supply disruption, nuclear outages
ISLAMABAD: Electricity consumers face a Rs1.74-per-unit increase in their June bills after the country’s power sector regulator received a request for more than Rs16 billion in additional fuel-cost recoveries, driven by a US-Iran military confrontation that disrupted liquefied natural gas supplies and was aggravated by reduced output from a nuclear plant outside Karachi.
Pakistan delays budget presentation as coalition fractures, IMF talks linger
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has postponed the unveiling of its federal budget for fiscal year 2026-27 by five days to June 10, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration grapples with mounting pressure from fractious coalition allies and unfinished negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over the spending plan’s architecture.
NAB returns Rs6 billion to northwestern province in first phase of sprawling public funds fraud case
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s national anti-corruption agency has returned more than six billion rupees — roughly $21.5 million — to the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, authorities said on Tuesday, marking the first concrete recovery in a fraud case that investigators say drained more than 37 billion rupees, or approximately $133 million, from public coffers over nearly a decade.
Pakistan fuel demand hits 13-year May low as prices bite
KARACHI: Pakistan’s petroleum sales fell to their lowest level for any May in 13 years last month, as retail fuel prices above Rs400 per liter squeezed household budgets, curtailed transport activity, and compounded the demand hit from the Eid Al-Adha holiday, according to data compiled by Arif Habib Limited Research.
Sugar mills seek export approval as surplus swells to 1.3 million tons
KARACHI Pakistan’s sugar milling industry is pressing the government for urgent export clearance, warning that a record domestic surplus is choking cash flows, imperiling farmer payments and threatening to unravel two years of hard-won gains in the country’s sugarcane sector.