Pakistan announces visa policy exempting fees for 126 countries, offering on-arrival permits

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan is finalizing a green taxonomy framework set for launch in June, the finance minister said this week, paving the way for innovative instruments such as green bonds, green sukuks, and the country’s inaugural panda bond.

In May 2021, Pakistan issued its first $500 million green bond to fund a hydroelectric project. Last month, the country launched its first-ever rupee-denominated green bond as part of efforts to mobilize private sector capital for environmentally sustainable development.

Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contributions 2021 (NDCs) set a cumulative and ambitious conditional target of an overall 50 percent reduction in its projected emissions by 2030, with 15 percent from the country’s own resources, and 35 percent subject to provision of international finance amounting to $101 billion just for energy transition. To reach the target, Pakistan aims to shift to 60 percent renewable energy (RE), and 30 percent EVs by 2030 and completely ban imported coal, while expanding nature-based solutions. A green finance scheme in the country can significantly support the achievement of these targets.

“Now the State Bank is in the process of finalizing the green taxonomy guidelines,” Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said during a talk at The Atlantic Council. “In the June timeframe, they will come out with the green taxonomy framework.”

Recalling Pakistan’s first green bond by the Water and Power Development Authority in 2021, he said a second step under the green taxonomy framework would be launch green sukuk, a Shariah-compliant Islamic bond where the proceeds are used to finance or refinance green projects that contribute to environmental sustainability, such as renewable energy, infrastructure development, and biodiversity preservation.

“The second is some of the green sukuks that we have issued locally now through the ministry of finance and the State Bank,” he said. “

“And the last thing I just want to mention here is we are quite hopeful that during this calendar year, we can print the first, inaugural panda bond that is going to also be green in nature, because the proceeds of those bonds are going to be linked with the SDG [UN’s Sustainable Development Goals] projects. So a lot is happening in that space.”

A panda bond is a Chinese Yuan (RMB)-denominated bond issued by a non-Chinese entity within China’s domestic bond market. This type of bond allows foreign entities, including governments and corporations, to access Chinese capital markets and tap into the liquidity of the Chinese financial system. Essentially, it is a way for non-Chinese issuers to raise funds in China without having to go through the standard international bond issuance process. 

Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change, experiencing significant impacts like rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and increased extreme weather events. These changes threaten water, food, and energy security, impacting agriculture, coastal areas, and ecosystems, according to a report from the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination. The country is also grappling with sea-level rise, glacial melting, and increased droughts.

PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s polio eradication program said on Wednesday a new case of the virus had been confirmed in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bringing the total count for 2025 to seven, as a nationwide campaign to inoculate millions of children continued.

Pakistan on Monday began a week-long drive aimed at vaccinating over 45 million children against polio. The country, which reported 74 polio cases in 2024, has planned three major vaccination campaigns in the first half of the year. This week’s drive is the second one for 2025 while a third will begin May 26.

“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health Islamabad has confirmed a polio case from District Torghar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the lab said in a statement, saying this was the second case from KP this year and the seventh from across Pakistan. 

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the last polio-endemic countries in the world. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.

But Pakistan’s polio program, launched in 1994, has faced persistent challenges including vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners who claim immunization is a foreign conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children or a guise for Western espionage. 

Militant groups have also repeatedly targeted and killed polio vaccination workers, including last week when gunmen attacked a vehicle and abducted two polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. On Monday, one militant was killed when gunmen opened fire on a police party escorting a polio team on the outskirts of Wana, the main town in KP’s South Waziristan district. 

On Wednesday, two security officials deployed to protect a polio vaccine team were killed in a gun attack in the Teri area of Mastung in the southwestern Balochistan province. 

“Such incidents cannot diminish the resolve of the government of Pakistan to completely eradicate polio from the country,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement. 

“The people should not be disappointed but should protect their future by administering polio drops to their children. The anti-polio campaign will continue with full vigor under any circumstances.”