Pakistan central bank expected to hold rates on Monday ahead of IMF deal
Median estimate in Reuters poll predicts State Bank will hold rates steady
South Asian nation is seeking new long-term, larger IMF bailout program
Updated 26 April 2024
Reuters
KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank is widely expected to hold its key interest rate at a record 22 percent for the seventh straight policy meeting on Monday as Pakistan gears up for an International Monetary Fund board approval and talks on a longer term program.
Monday’s policy decision will be followed by the fund’s executive board meeting to discuss the approval of $1.1 billion in funding for Pakistan, which is the last tranche of a $3 billion standby arrangement with the IMF secured last summer to avert a sovereign default.
The median estimate in a Reuters poll of 14 analysts predicts the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will hold rates steady.
Four analysts are forecasting a 100-basis-point (bps) cut, while two expect a 50-bps cut on Monday.
Eight respondents expect a rate cut before Pakistan signs a new program with the IMF. There is another MPC meeting on 10 June 2024, which is possibly before Pakistan gets another IMF Programme.
The South Asian nation is seeking a new long-term, larger IMF loan. Pakistan’s Finance Minister, Muhammad Aurangzeb, has said Islamabad will begin talks with the fund next month, and could secure a staff-level agreement on the new program by early July.
Pakistan’s key rate was last raised in June to fight persistent inflationary pressures and to meet one of the conditions set by the IMF for securing the bailout.
Pakistan’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March rose 20.7 percent from the year before, slowing down partly due to the “base effect,” touching a record high of 38 percent in May 2023.
Tahir Abbas, head of research at Arif Habib Limited said that the central bank is unlikely to cut rates before getting a new IMF program. “The monetary policy will also consider the inflationary outcome of tensions in the middle east and its impact of fuel prices, along with the Fed’s delay in monetary easing,” he added.
“Expect a symbolic reduction in the current quarter (till June), with aggressive cuts to follow in the September quarter as the government has to roll over approximately 6.7 trillion rupees of maturing domestic treasury bills in the last quarter of the calendar year,” said Mustafa Pasha, CIO of Lakson Investments.
He added that by then there will be greater clarity on inflation and FX inflows. “Historically the SBP has cut rates in the 1st year of an IMF program and we expect the policy rate to settle around 17 percent by December.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday met executives from Chinese space technology company GalaxySpace and discussed increasing cooperation in the fields of space and satellite technology and telecommunications.
Pakistan and China have deepened their space cooperation in recent months through the joint development of satellites and are planning a lunar mission in 2028. China has been key in advancing Pakistan’s space program, supporting satellite launches like PakSat-MM1 and PakSat-1R, and offering technical training through collaboration between the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO).
On Tuesday, Sharif received a delegation from GalaxySpace, which specializes in developing and manufacturing low-cost, mass-production low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for the commercial space sector, with the aim of delivering high-speed broadband connectivity to remote and underserved regions around the world. The firm is often likened to US company SpaceX’s Starlink.
“GalaxySpace delegation expresses keen interest in investing in Pakistan’s space technology industry and joint ventures with Pakistani space technology institutions and private telecom companies,” Sharif’s office said in a statement after he met with the company’s chairman Xu Ming.
Sharif said Pakistan was looking to increase cooperation with China in space and satellite technology, telecommunications and the development of satellite Internet.
“Pakistan is giving utmost importance to the space technology sector,” the statement quoted Sharif as saying.
In February this year, Pakistan and China signed an MoU for Pakistan’s first lunar rover to be included in Beijing’s Chang’E 8 mission, which is a robotic exploration of the lunar south pole expected to launch in 2028. Pakistani scientists will operate the rover from Earth to map the lunar terrain, examine soil composition, assess radiation and plasma conditions and test emerging technologies to support long-term human presence on the moon.
Pakistan’s space agency has also signed an agreement with China for Pakistan’s first astronaut to embark on a mission to a Chinese space station.
In May 2024, Pakistan launched its first lunar satellite aboard China’s Chang’e-6 probe, which successfully landed on the moon’s far side, which is not visible from Earth. The mission returned in June, making China the first nation to bring back samples from this remote lunar region.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has started vaccinating intending Hajj pilgrims against meningitis, flu and polio ahead of this year’s pilgrimage, the Pakistani religion ministry said on Tuesday.
The annual pilgrimage is expected to take place in June. Nearly 90,000 Pakistanis are expected to travel to Saudi Arabia under the government scheme, while 23,620 Pakistanis will perform Hajj through private tour operators this year.
The South Asian country has made arrangement for the vaccination of pilgrims at 11 Hajj camps established across the country, according to the religious affairs ministry.
“Hajj pilgrims should visit the Hajj camps as per the given schedule,” the ministry said. “Pilgrims must get the yellow card issued by the government after getting vaccinated.”
Pakistan will launch Hajj flight operations from Apr. 29, with the first flight departing from the eastern city of Lahore.
While a precise number of pilgrims for Hajj 2025 is difficult to be determined in advance, projections suggest it will be a record-breaking year, with over 2.5 million pilgrims expected.
“Special arrangements have been made for coronavirus vaccine for pilgrims above 65 years of age,” the Pakistani religion ministry added.
Since April 1, more than 92,000 Afghans have been sent back to their country of origin, out of the some three million the UN says are living in Pakistan
Many had lived in Pakistan for decades after fleeing successive wars, crises in Afghanistan but did not wait to be arrested by Pakistani forces before leaving
Updated 22 April 2025
AFP
Torkham: Pushed out of Pakistan where she was born, Nazmine Khan’s first experience of her country, Afghanistan, was in a sweltering tent at a border camp.
“We never thought we would return to Afghanistan,” said the 15-year-old girl, who has little idea of what will become of her or her family, only that she is likely to have fewer freedoms.
“When our parents told us we had to leave, we cried,” added Khan.
Afghan refugees with their belongings sit in a truck as they arrive from Pakistan at a makeshift camp near the Afghanistan-Pakistan Torkham border in Nangarhar province on April 20, 2025. (AFP)
Having nowhere to go in Afghanistan, she and six other family members shared a stifling tent in the Omari camp near the Torkham border point.
Islamabad, accusing Afghans of links to narcotics and “supporting terrorism,” announced a new campaign in March to expel hundreds of thousands of Afghans, with or without documents.
Many had lived in Pakistan for decades after fleeing successive wars and crises but did not wait to be arrested by Pakistani forces before leaving, seeing their removal as inevitable.
Since April 1, more than 92,000 Afghans have been sent back to their country of origin, according to Islamabad, out of the some three million the United Nations says are living in Pakistan.
Afghans walk through a fenced corridor after arriving from Pakistan near the zero point at the Torkham International Border Crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Nangarhar province, on April 20, 2025. (AFP)
Khan’s family fled Afghanistan in the 1960s. Her four brothers and sister were also born in Pakistan.
“In a few days we’ll look for a place to rent” in the border province of Nangarhar where the family has roots, she told AFP, speaking in Pakistan’s commonly spoken tongue of Urdu, not knowing any Afghan languages.
In the family’s tent there is little more than a cloth to lie on and a few cushions, but no mattress or blanket. Flies buzz under the tarpaulin as countless children in ragged clothes come and go.
When it comes to her own future, Khan feels “completely lost,” she said.
Afghan workers sit near the zero point at the Torkham International Border Crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Nangarhar province, on April 20, 2025. (AFP)
Having dropped out of school in Pakistan, the Taliban authorities’ ban on girls studying beyond primary school will hardly change the course of her life.
But from what little she heard about her country while living in eastern Pakistan’s Punjab, she knows that “here there are not the same freedoms.”
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed restrictions on women characterised by the UN as “gender apartheid.”
Women have been banned from universities, parks, gyms and beauty salons and squeezed from many jobs.
Pakistani border security personnel (back) stand guard as Afghan boy workers run through the zero point at the Torkham International Border Crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Nangarhar province, on April 20, 2025. (AFP)
“It is now a new life... for them, and they are starting this with very little utilities, belongings, cash, support,” said Ibrahim Humadi, program lead for non-governmental group Islamic Relief, which has set up about 200 tents for returnees in the Omari camp.
Some stay longer than the three days offered on arrival, not knowing where to go with their meager savings, he said.
“They also know that even in their area of return, the community will be welcoming them, will be supporting them... but they know also the community are already suffering from the situation in Afghanistan,” he added.
Around 85 percent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
“We had never seen (Afghanistan) in our lives. We do not know if we can find work, so we are worried,” said Jalil Khan Mohamedin, 28, as he piled belongings — quilts, bed frames and fans — into a truck that will take the 16 members of his family to the capital Kabul, though nothing awaits them there.
The Taliban authorities have said they are preparing towns specifically for returnees.
But at one site near Torkham, there is nothing more than cleared roads on a rocky plain.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) believes “greater clarity” is needed to ensure that the sites intended for returnees are “viable” in terms of basic infrastructure and services such as health and education.
It’s important that “returnees are making informed decisions and that their relocation to the townships is voluntary,” communications officer Avand Azeez Agha told AFP.
Looking dazed, Khan’s brother Dilawar still struggles to accept leaving Pakistan, where he was born 25 years ago.
His Pakistani wife did not want to follow him and asked for a divorce.
“When we crossed the border, we felt like going back, then after a day it felt fine,” said the former truck driver.
“We still don’t understand. We were only working.”
KARACHI: US tech firm Spectreco LLC and AlBaraka Forum, a Saudi think-tank, would launch an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Index in June to develop a robust benchmark for sustainable investments that align with the Islamic law and global regulations, the Spectreco chief executive officer told Arab News.
The two partners announced the launch of the Artificial Intelligence-led Shariah-compliant ESG index at the 45th AlBaraka Islamic Economics Symposium which was held last week in the Saudi city of Madinah.
“The actual launch of this index will happen in Istanbul in June,” said Faraz Khan, the winner of UK’s prestigious Order of the British Empire who was born in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta.
“In the next three to five years, we hope to make this index [will be] the most widely used index in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region, starting with Saudi Arabia and led by it.”
The index is designed to be a “game changer” and a smart, technology-driven solution that will integrate the faith-based financial system with global ESG regulations. It will have the fundamentals of both the global ESG regulations and Shariah-compliant financial systems, and will be binding them through technology, according to Khan.
Spectreco and AlBaraka are currently looking for users, asset managers, banks and funds for the index that would help the Islamic economy and the wider world to integrate in a more value proposition-oriented way. The initiative would serve stakeholders, including investors, regulators and Islamic finance institutions seeking to align faith-based investment practices with modern sustainability goals, as the reporting of their compliance with ESG regulations is becoming mandatory for companies from Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia Pacific, and parts of North America.
“Now your trade and FDI both have embedded the sustainability and ESG and carbon footprint mechanisms across their space,” Khan told Arab News in an interview.
He said Islamic economies from the Middle East and North Africa region, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, were moving toward mandatory ESG compliance reporting, while Oman had already made it mandatory.
“A huge Islamic economy is moving toward mandatory reporting,” said Khan, whose firm aims to simplify sustainability reporting, compliance and performance tracking across multiple jurisdictions.
Speaking of the leverage his company has over others in terms of entering Saudi Arabia and other gulf markets, Khan said they have a technology that has an end-to-end mechanism and is driven by data, evidence and AI in the space of ESG and sustainability.
“We have on-ground expertise of the built environment and financial services and investor paradigm,” he said.
Yousef Hassan Khalawi, secretary-general at the Albaraka Forum that aims to advance Islamic economy, said the global Islamic economy was attracting more and more people and its size was expected to increase to $7 trillion by 2028.
“This is yet not that number which can represent the capacity of Muslims which are as a population now almost around 25 percent” of the world population, Khalawi told Arab News in a separate interview from Bahrain.
At $2 trillion, he said, the Islamic finance industry is still less than five percent of the global finance industry. He said the Shariah-compliant index would encourage bankers and business developers to develop more products that would meet global sustainability standards.
“It is, it should be a global index which means it should cover banks from Indonesia till Nigeria till even South Africa,” Khalawi said.
Around 65 percent of Islamic banking assets were concentrated in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region as well as Malaysia, according to the Albaraka official. In Saudi Arabia, the size of retail Islamic banking stood more than 95 percent while the corporate size was over 70 percent.
“Here, you are focusing on the major markets and then the rest of the world will come easier,” he added.
Khalawi called Pakistan a “very important nation,” with one of the “fiercest creators” of the Shariah-compliant economy.
Pakistan’s Islamic banking is growing at more than 20 percent every year and its government is trying to fully make its interest-based financial system Shariah-compliant by Dec. 2027, a deadline set by Pakistan’s Shariah court in April 2022.
“Many initiatives also will come in Pakistan,” Khalawi said. “For sure, we are considering Pakistan, as I said, in every single initiative we have.”
At least 13 killed as passenger truck falls into ravine in southern Pakistan
The accident occurred overnight in Jamshoro district of Sindh province
Hospital officials said some of the injured were in critical condition
Updated 22 April 2025
AP
MULTAN: A speeding truck carrying laborers, women and children fell into a ravine in southern Pakistan, killing at least 13 people and injuring 20 others, police said Tuesday.
The road accident occurred overnight in Jamshoro district in southern Sindh province, city police chief Saddique Changra told reporters.
Hospital officials said some of the injured were in critical condition.
According to local media, the accident happened as dozens of laborers were returning to their homes in Sindh’s Badin district after harvesting wheat in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
Road accidents are common in Pakistan, where highways and roads are poorly maintained and traffic laws are widely ignored.
