The diminished Mr Dar

HE is the most confident finance minister I have seen since Shaukat Tarin, but lately Mr Ishaq Dar has lost some of that poise in his stride. Since...

Principles vs pragmatism

THIS is neither about principles nor about the politics of pragmatism. This is a power struggle, pure and simple. One person has the power and the...

Advancing CPEC by stealth

THIS newspaper carried a report back in May revealing a document that could be called the CPEC master plan. That report drew a sharp response from the...

The Dar-shaped curve

SOMETHING very important was said by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in his angry remarks against the rupee’s depreciation last week that has passed...

Sliding rupee

Plundering the poor

WE have learned from the textbooks that the system can be rigged in ways that it transfers wealth from the poor to the rich. But it is another matter...

Emergency in the power sector

THIS is coming to emergency levels and there is no option now but to shout this out as loudly as possible in the hope that somebody, somewhere, will...

Deficits and reserves

THIS week, the trade deficit crossed $30 billion, probably the most meaningful milestone crossed recently. Certainly more so than any ‘historic...

Power rackets continued

FOR almost two months now, word has been circulating in power-sector circles that the large power-sector expansion plan being put in place by the...

Load-shedding returns

THIS is beginning to look like a rerun of the previous government’s last year in power. Rampant load-shedding, riots and attacks on power-sector...

Budget cosmetics

IN the last year of its rule, the PML-N has decided to throw all caution to the winds and go for a growth strategy that is as cosmetic as the period...

Setting the record straight

THE Long-Term Plan (LTP) document for CPEC was developed by the China Development Bank and finalised by December 2015. One year later, on December 29,...

Power rackets

IT ought to have been predicted, but everybody was too busy running the sums. Since 2013, the government has gone on a buying spree in the power...

Regulatory capture approaches

HERE comes the moment we were warned of in December. The move to ‘capture’ the regulators, particularly the power-sector regulator Nepra, has now...

Terror financing

FINANCE Minister Ishaq Dar is in Washington, D.C. these days, and as could be expected, during his meeting with the treasury secretary, the question...

Load-shedding and an election

WHILE the verdict on the Panama Papers case commands the national attention these days, another issue of potential game-changing significance is...

Trading priorities

THE new secretary commerce has assumed charge at a very difficult time it seems. Only days after his appointment, data shows that Pakistan’s trade...

Mystery of CPEC payments

THE latest quarterly report by the State Bank of Pakistan points out an intriguing development regarding the payments connected with CPEC projects....

Reko Diq ruckus

“HAVE you heard of Reko Diq?” the man asked me in a hushed voice. “No, what’s Reko Diq?” I replied.“Very few have heard of it,” he said,...

Sighting land

TWO weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the special economic zones planned under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in which I drew attention to a news...

CPEC: Is there cause for alarm?

A NUMBER of articles in the past week have created some undue anxiety about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Let us put it in plain English at...

CPEC enclaves

A SMALL line in a news story a few days ago caught my eye. The setting was a hearing in the Senate Standing Committee on Planning and Development at...

Regulating the stock market

AN interesting series of developments is taking place around the stock market these days. I believe this is the first time we are seeing the regulator...