Foreign Exchange - 3

The foreign direct investment in Pakistan crossed $1 billion mark during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, showing an increase of 14 per cent over the same period last year. Financial business emerged as the leading sector to attract direct investment from abroad with $214 million, followed by oil and gas $189.6 [...]

A recent study by Pakistan Software Export Board clearly establishes the important role of expatriate entrepreneurship in the development of the software industry in Pakistan, in particular, and developing countries, in general. The study found a clear, positive correlation between ventures that had foreign-based founders (generally, expatriate Pakistanis) and their success and growth over the [...]

The children have Swatch watches, branded sports shoes and other symbols of affluence. In obvious contrast, their mother and paternal grandparents, with whom they live, still dress in the simple cotton clothes of poverty. She regards the refrigerator, flat-screen television set and air-conditioner in their house with a wariness akin to suspicion. Regular remittances sent [...]

US department store operator JC Penney says it will double its readymade garments and home textiles imports from Pakistan over a two-year period. JC Penney’s Tom Gorski said that the amount of textile exports from Pakistan would grow by PKR8 billion as a result of the deal. Gorski said that the sale of Pakistani-produced merchandise [...]

Pakistan’s big textile sector, which grew more than 24 per cent, led the rise in large-scale manufacturing. Textile investors are estimated to have poured up to $6bn (A$4.7bn, A$3.3bn) into the sector in the five years to the end of 2004. The Karachi stock exchange’s 100 share index closed 1.6 per cent higher, spurred mainly [...]

Leading Swedish-based retailer IKEA is keen to import household items worth Euro 100 million 9US$130 million) during the next fiscal year. The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and IKEA, in the meanwhile are jointly organizing EPB-IKEA conference at Karachi and Lahore on May 17 and 19, respectively. The EPB has advised companies engaged in manufacturing home [...]

According to State Bank during the last one week the foreign reserves with a 0.40 million dollars increase have remained at 13.2 billion dollars. The foreign exchange reserves under custody of the bank with a 10 million dollar increase have remained at 10.23 billion dollars while there has been a 66-lac dollars decrease in the [...]

Workers’ remittances registered the highest ever increase in Pakistan’s history when a record amount of US$443.70 million was remitted in March 2005 compared to $329.67 million in March 2004, showing a jump of $114.03 million or 34.59 per cent. Pakistan received $3,050.51 million as workers’ remittances during the first nine months (July 2004 – March [...]

Jiangxi Copper Co., China’s largest producer of the metal, is spending $120 million on a copper and gold mine in Pakistan to secure more supplies of the metals, The company made an initial investment for the first-phase of development of the Saindak copper mine, The company will secure 20,000 metric tons of copper and 2 [...]

Pakistani rice is expected to enter into Chinese market by June 2005 as the two countries signed a protocol and exporters see the Asian country as largest single buyer of the Pakistani varieties, which could double country’s rice export figures. China, world’s biggest consumer of rice, agreed to buy rice from Pakistan following consent to [...]