KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday issued the Karachi Interbank Offered Rates (KIBOR) as of December 23, 2021.
Following are the latest KIBOR rates:
| Tenor | BID | OFFER |
| 1 – Week | 9.67 | 10.17 |
| 2 – Week | 9.76 | 10.26 |
| 1 – Month | 9.84 | 10.34 |
| 3 – Month | 10.16 | 10.41 |
| 6 – Month | 10.92 | 11.17 |
| 9 – Month | 10.96 | 11.46 |
| 1 – Year | 11.16 | 11.66 |
KARACHI: The US dollar retreated from it’s all time high of Rs178.15 against the Pak Rupee at three paisas on Thursday.
The rupee ended at Rs178.12 to the dollar from the previous day’s closing of Rs178.15 in the interbank foreign exchange market.
Currency experts attributed the gain in rupee value to curbs introduced by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) regarding purchase of dollars by individuals from the open market.
The experts said that the dollar demand for import and corporate payment remained high due to year-end factors. Some support was seen due to foreign inflows, they added.
The rupee was under pressure since the start of the current fiscal year as the trade deficit and current account deficit have swollen massively.
Pakistan’s current account deficit has ballooned to $7 billion during the first five months (July – November) 2021/2022. The current account posted a surplus of $1.87 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year.
The trade deficit widened by 112 per cent to $20.65 billion during the period under review as compared with $the deficit of 9.72 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year.
Karachi, Pakistan – On Thursday, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released the official exchange rates for December 23, 2021, offering customers vital information based on the weighted average rates of commercial banks.
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KARACHI: Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) has proposed a self assessment scheme under which the institution may select companies through random balloting for audit.
EOBI Chairman Shakeel Ahmed Mangnejo said that for the convenience of employers as well as to encourage more contributions from them, a Self-Assessment Scheme is proposed in the upcoming amendment into the EOBI Act, under which, companies to be audited shall be selected by random balloting.
READ MORE: EOBI pension to increase Rs15,000 per month
He was addressing the SITE Association of Industry (SAI).
EOBI Chairman announced to make EOBI Helpdesk at SITE Association functional with immediate effect and depute an officer to attend the Helpdesk at least once in a week for better coordination between registered employers and EOBI as well as to resolve issues of members of the Association.
Expressing views on minimum wage and contribution, Chairman EOBI asked the industrialists to make payment at Rs. 13,000/- wage and clear the backlog as the EOBI fund is also facing difficulties.
He gave the option of installments to those who are paying contributions of less than 780/- per month to clear their backlog.
READ MORE: SITE Association demands reversing policy rate at 7%
He further informed that EOBI is currently paying Rs50 billion per annum to more than 400,000 pensioners. Therefore, everyone should pay a contribution on time Rs13000 minimum wage in the larger interest of registered workers and suggested to report harassment cases under Section 35 of the Act – a portal for this is already active on their website.
Replying to a query from Ex-President Saleem Parekh regarding sharing of EOBI accounts, Chairman EOBI informed that un-audited accounts up to the year 2020, together with minutes of BOT, have been placed on the website of EOBI.
Chairman EOBI further said that companies whose contributions exceed Rs. 100,000/month would be bound to pay their contributions through EOBI’s automated Facilitation System (FS) from 1st February 2022. This is necessary to maintain an accurate record of registered workers. By March 2022, EOBI is expected to launch its mobile app as well.
READ MORE: SITE Association signs MoU for tax return filing
Earlier, President of SITE Association of Industry Abdul Rasheed, while welcoming the guests, said that a representative of SITE Association should be taken in the Board of Trustees of EOBI and stressed the need to re-activate EOBI Helpdesk at SITE Association as per past practice. He mentioned that collection targets issued by EOBI should be avoided and inspection of records should be done only once in a year. He also highlighted the issues being faced by pensioners, particularly widows, in getting pension.
SVP Saud Mahmood briefed members on the Profile of Shakeel Ahmed Mangnejo who is very well qualified and highly accomplished in all his previous postings.
Chairman of Labour Sub-Committee Abdul Kadir Bilwani on this occasion briefed the Chairman EOBI on the issues being faced by the employers and employees of SITE area which in particular included delay in issuance of pension cards, release of pending applications of pensioners for payments, relief in inspection audits given the COVID situation to help Industrialists, harassment of Industrialists by audit inspectors and unnecessary demand of company financials.
READ MORE: SITE Association hails FBR chairman’s no bank account freezing decision
Former president Jawed Bilwani said that industrialists are actual stakeholders of the country who generate employment, pay taxes and earn sorely needed foreign exchange. He demanded that representatives of employers in EOBI should provide evidence of having taken input from all industrial area associations before making any decision to avoid litigation.
Former president Younus Bashir on this occasion expressed views about EOBI audit and collection target, notorious activities of labour leaders in industrial areas and stressed the need to avoid time-consuming litigation and drew the attention of EOBI Chairman towards labour representatives’ conduct in the EOBI meetings. He also suggested linking the number of employees with the power & gas consumption of the industry for a better and holistic view of operations as opposed to arbitrary assumptions.
Dr. Javed Sheikh, Deputy Director General and Ali Muttaqi Shah, Regional Head, Nazimabad Region, EOBI, Abdul Rasheed, President of SITE Association of Industry, Saud Mahmood, SVP SAI, Muhammad Kamran Arbi, VP, Chairman of Labour Sub-Committee Abdul Kadir Bilwani, Former president Jawed Bilwani, Former president Younus Bashir, Tariq Yousuf, Sikandar Imran, Anwer Aziz, Saleem Nagaria, Muhammad Riaz Dhedhi, Azeem M. Afzal Motiwala, Touseef Ahmed, Farhan Ashrafi, Hussain Moosani, Junaid-ur-Rehman, Haris Shakoor, Shahid Ghazanfar and others were also present in the meeting.
KARACHI: The stocks ended flat on Wednesday ahead of planned announcement of mini-budget by the government. The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) ended at 44,175 points as against previous day’s closing of 44,177 points, showing a decrease of 2.1 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued to remain choppy ahead of mini-budget.
READ MORE: KSE-100 index declines by 163 points on widening CAD
The government had planned to take the cabinet’s nod to the Supplementary Finance Bill, 2021 to slap highly inflationary Rs360 billion in indirect taxes.
Profit-taking was witnessed in the first trading hour then market battled between the bulls and bears throughout the day.
Main board volumes remained on the dull note whereas activity continued to remain side-ways as market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks.
READ MORE: Stocks gain 169 points on SBP’s OMO
Sectors contributing to the performance include Cement (-28 points), Engineering (-14 points), Insurance (-11 points) and Chemicals (-6 points).
Volumes decreased from 223.1 million shares to 151.8 million shares (-32.0 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 24.3 per cent to reach US$ 36.9 million as against US$ 48.7 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include GGL, UNITY, TRG, WTL and CNERGY.
KARACHI, December 22, 2021 – The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has announced the latest Karachi Interbank Offered Rates (KIBOR) for various tenors, effective from December 22, 2021.
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KARACHI: Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) has expressed serious concerns over reports suggesting imposition of regulatory duty on polyester yarns.
Saqib Naseem, PYMA Central Chairman in a statement on Wednesday expressed deep concern over rumors circulating about lobbying for imposition of regulatory duty on imported polyester yarns by local manufacturers of polyester filament yarns.
READ MORE: FPCCI urges measures to overcome gas crisis
He urged Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tarin not to succumb to the pressure of local manufacturers, and to reject any proposal for imposition of regulatory duty on imports of polyester filament yarns, especially HS Code 5402.3300 and HS Code 5402.4700.
Appealing in a letter to Finance Advisor Shaukat Tarin, Chairman PYMA said that the local manufacturers of polyester filament yarns were lobbying the concerned agencies, especially the Ministry of Commerce, to impose regulatory duty on imported polyester yarns.
This would be extremely detrimental to the local consumers of polyester filament yarn, and would be against the government’s policy of ensuring the availability of raw materials to the industry and consumers at competitive prices.
READ MORE: Yarn merchants demand cut in interest rate
Saqib Naseem said “In the letter that despite the fact that local manufacturers of polyester filament yarns are already enjoying discounted tariffs, efforts to implement regulatory duties will significantly increase the production cost of local industries”, fearing that therefore, no such proposal should be considered which is detrimental to the domestic industries.
PYMA chairman was of the opinion the current custom duty of 11% is rather excessive. For your information the custom duty on polyester staple fiber is 7% and the local manufacturers of PSF seem to be doing with this level of protection. There is no significant production cost difference between polyester staple fiber and polyester filament yarn.
READ MORE: PYMA demands cotton import through land routes
He added that the weaving and knitting industry (user industry) is already facing a very challenging situation due to very high cotton and polyester yarn prices, and imposition of regulatory duty would be extremely counterproductive especially when the local user industry has to import 65 per cent of its requirements of polyester filament yarn from foreign suppliers.
Saqib Naseem urged the government not to listen to the unjust pressure of local manufacturers of polyester filament yarns to impose regulatory duties, and only take measures to reduce the cost of production of domestic industries and stabilize the economy.
Karachi, Pakistan – On Wednesday, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) unveiled the official exchange rates for December 22, 2021, providing customers with essential information based on the weighted average rates of commercial banks.
(more…)KARACHI: The benchmark KSE-100 index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Tuesday declined by 163 points owing to the widening of the Current Account Deficit (CAD).
The benchmark index closed at 44,177 points as against the previous day’s close of 44,340 points.
READ MORE: Stocks gain 439 points on stable market hints
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market remained choppy today as CAD numbers increased to $1.9 billion during November 2021.
On YoY basis, the primary reason behind the deficit was 57 per cent YoY increase in total imports to $7.3 billion. Profit-taking occurred in the first trading hour then the market battled between the bulls and bears throughout the day. Volumes remained on the dull note whereas activity continued to remain side-ways as the market witnessed hefty volumes in the 3rd tier stocks.
READ MORE: Stocks gain 169 points on SBP’s OMO
Sectors contributing to the performance include E&P (-57 points), Commercial Banks (-51 points), Fertilizer (-45 points), Cement (-39 points) and OMC’s (-14 points).
Volumes decreased from 238.5 million shares to 223.1 million shares (-6.4 per cent DoD). Traded value also decreased by 7.6 per cent to reach US$ 48.8 million as against US$ 52.8 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include WTL, TRG, CNERGY, FFL and TELE.
KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday directed commercial banks to accept bearer prize bonds of high denomination till March 31, 2021.
Through a circular, the SBP informed that Circular No. 1 dated April 30, 2021, and Circular No. 3 dated September 29, 2021, were issued wherein the last date for encashment/conversion/redemption of captioned denominations of National Prize Bonds (NPBs) was communicated as December 31, 2021.
READ MORE: Prize bond (bearer) holders given 3 months to document
The Finance Division, Government of Pakistan has extended the last date for encashment/replacement/conversion of Rs. 40,000/-, Rs. 25,000/-, Rs. 15,000/- & Rs. 7,500/- denomination National Prize Bonds (bearer) up to March 31, 2022, vide Notification Nos. F.16(3)GS-I/2014-1869, 1870, 1871 & 1872 dated December 16, 2021.
READ MORE: History of Prize Bonds in Pakistan
Accordingly, the SBP directed all branches shall be advised to accept requests for encashment/conversion/redemption of cited denominations from the general public till March 31, 2022.
Further, the banks shall submit branch/region-wise consolidated data of cited denomination NPBs held by them on the last date i.e. March 31, 2022, latest by April 1, 2022, as per the instructions stipulated in the aforementioned CMD Circulars.