Happenings

ISLAMABAD, Apr 18 (DNA): Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Pakistan, Aybek Arif Usmanov has expressed keen interest to enhance bilateral relations in trade, industry, and e-commerce and emphasized the need to take appropriate steps to expand trade volume up to $1 billion between both countries.

He expressed these views in a meeting with Federal Minister for Commerce Syed Naveed Qamar here on Tuesday.

He said bilateral trade relations had shown a positive trend, and trade data for the fiscal year 2021-22 reflected a growth of $91 million, whereas Pakistan’s exports to Uzbekistan had doubled from $36.56 million in July-March 2021-22 to $73.12 million during July-March 2022-23.

He said that bilateral trade volume could increase to $5 billion annually by removing unwanted barriers. He also acknowledged the minister’s political reconciliation efforts to bring all parties on the negotiation table.

The two sides also agreed for working jointly to identify opportunities for cooperation in trade, investment, and other sectors.

During the meeting, the commerce minister acknowledged the enormous potential for trade between the two countries and said that there was a need to identify new sectors for cooperation and assured the ambassador of his full support and cooperation.

KARACHI:
China, the second largest global economy, on Friday eventually came forward to aid Pakistan in testing times, as it lent $700 million to Islamabad, supporting its foreign exchange reserves which improved apparently to a six-week high close to $4 billion.

Beijing has disbursed the loan, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is still on its way to resume $6.5 billion loan programme.

"Funds [worth] $700 million received today by [the] State Bank of Pakistan from [the] China Development Bank," Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on his Twitter handle.

The China Development Bank's board of directors completed formalities, approving the facility of $700 million for Pakistan earlier this week, the minister said on Wednesday. "This amount … will shore up its (Pakistan) forex reserves.”

In anticipation of receipt of the loan from the second largest global economy of China, the domestic currency recovered to one-month high beyond Rs260 against the dollar in the interbank market on Friday.

The currency freshly recovered 0.36%, or 94 paisas, to Rs259.99 against the greenback, according to the SBP.

To recall, Pakistan was managing a high risk of default on foreign debt repayments and its economy melted down in the wake of fast depletion in the country's foreign exchange reserves to a nine-year low at $2.92 billion in the week that ended on Feb 3, 2023.

Earlier, the reserves stood at $20 billion some 18 months ago in August 2021. The larger import payments and foreign debt repayments dried the reserves to below $3 billion amid suspension of the IMF loan programme of $6.5 billion.

To recall, Pakistan had returned two loans totalling at $1.2 billion to China (ie $700 million and $500 million) in December 2022 and expected Beijing would quickly reissue the same financing back to Islamabad.

The expectation, however, did not come true amid delay in resumption of the IMF loan progrmme in December 2022.

China, however, finally decided to come forward to rescue Pakistan on Friday, while the IMF programme resumption is also around the corner, development suggests.

According to SBP's latest weekly update on Thursday, the country's foreign exchange reserves improved by $66 million in a week to a four-week high at $3.26 billion on Feb 17.

The reserves continued to improve for the second consecutive week. Cumulatively, they improved by $369 million in the past two weeks to $3.26 billion from a nine-year low at $2.92 billion on Feb 3.

Pakistan was estimated to repay around $8 billion in foreign debt in the second half (Jan-Jun) of the current fiscal year 2023, while a notable portion of the loan was expected to get a rollover.

High-ups, including Dar and SBP Governor Jameel Ahmed, said time and again Pakistan would continue to repay its foreign debt on time, as they had arranged financing required in the current fiscal year 2023.

The low forex reserves had, however, agreed economic mangers to curb non-essential and luxury imports through administrative controls. The low imports, mostly of raw materials, resulted in the closing of factories partially or completely and rendered millions of people jobless in the country.

The White House has said there is no indication three flying objects blasted out of the sky over the weekend by the US military are linked to alleged Chinese spying.

The objects may be "tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign", spokesman John Kirby said.
US and Canadian officials have not yet located or recovered any wreckage from the three downed aircraft.
Beijing earlier accused the US of "a trigger-happy overreaction".
China has denied one of its balloons, which was destroyed by a US fighter jet earlier this month off South Carolina, was being used for espionage, saying it was merely a weather-monitoring airship that had blown off course.

How has China reacted to the balloon saga?
At Tuesday's daily news conference, Mr Kirby said it will be difficult to determine the purpose or origin of the three other objects that were destroyed over Alaska, Canada and Michigan until the debris is found and analysed.
"We haven't seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the PRC's [People's Republic of China] spying programme," the White House National Security Council told reporters, "or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts".

A "leading explanation" being considered by US intelligence, he added, was that "these could be balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign".
But he noted that no company, organisation or government had yet laid claim to the objects.
In the most recent strike - over Lake Huron - the first Sidewinder missile fired by a US F-16 warplane missed its target, the top US general has confirmed.
"First shot missed. Second shot hit," said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley during a visit to Brussels on Tuesday.

"We go to great lengths to make sure that the airspace is clear and the backdrop is clear up to the max effective range of the missile. And in this case, the missiles land, or the missile landed, harmlessly in the water of Lake Huron."
A spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, criticised the American response.
"Many in the US have been asking, 'what good can such costly action possibly bring to the US and its taxpayers?'" said Wang Wenbin on Tuesday.

Sensors from the alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down over the US on 4 February were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, and are being analysed by the FBI.
Search crews found "significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified" off the coast of South Carolina, said US Northern Command.
The Chinese balloon was being tracked by US intelligence since its lift-off from a base on Hainan Island on the south coast of China earlier this month, US media report.

Shortly after take-off the balloon drifted towards the US islands of Guam and Hawaii before moving north towards Alaska, American officials told CBS News, the BBC's partner.
The unnamed officials say that its path indicates that it could have been blown off course by weather, but that it was back under the Chinese control again by the time it reached the continental US.
The entire US Senate received a classified briefing on Tuesday about the matter from military leaders.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber would launch an inquiry into why the aircraft were not detected earlier.
"It's a good question," Mr Schumer told reporters. "We need to answer it."
Meanwhile, Romania scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday to investigate an aerial object entering European airspace.
But the country's defence ministry said the pilots were unable to locate it and abandoned the mission after half an hour.

KARACHI: The refineries warned of a looming petrol crisis by mid-February if the government fails to resolve the payments issues of imported raw materials and additives needed by the sector, The News reported Friday.

The delay in payments of raw materials and additives as well as the dollar shortage hampered the production of petrol massively, the refineries explained.

“The situation will become extremely critical mid-February 2023, if remedial measures are not taken immediately,” local refineries warned State Minister for Petroleum Dr Musadik Malik and Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Dr Jameel Ahmed in separate letters. The letters were jointly written by Pakistan Refinery Limited, National Refinery, Attock Refinery and Cnergyico Refinery.

Difficulties in establishing letters of credit (LCs) for the payment of raw materials and other inputs needed by the refineries have been cited as the major cause of the looming crisis. Punjab has already started experiencing the unavailability of petrol, after alleged hoarding in anticipation of the price hike expected in the next fortnightly review.

The copy of the letter available with The News says that the SBP issued a priority list of essential imports for foreign remittances of critical industries and petroleum products were included in that priority list.

However, imports of essential raw materials and additives mainly N-Methylaniline (NMA — a non-metallic RON booster) against which LCs have already been established were being held by the banks for release of documents and payments. Moreover, the banks are reluctant to establish LCs for NMA imports against which payment for month of February/March 2023 are falling, it stated.

Refineries cautioned that the delay or suspension of foreign payments for imports of such essential raw material/additives including establishing credit letters for the same would seriously hamper the operations of refineries, especially the local production of mogas (petrol).

Refineries noted that maximum production of indigenous petroleum products especially mogas at this critical time was the need of the hour, as oil marketing companies (OMCs) were already finding it difficult to import the fuel due to the foreign exchange liquidity crunch.

They added that the refining sector has been contributing enormously towards the economic development of Pakistan in the shape of revenues/government levies/taxes and more importantly processing of crude oil and substantial savings in precious foreign exchange through import substitution.

The letter said that the sector with such major contributions to foreign exchange savings should not be denied permission to remit a payment/establish credit letters to further its business operations.

Refineries asked the central bank to advise banks to release/establish credit letters for refineries, and remittances against already issued letters without further delay to avoid any unpleasant situation.

ISLAMABAD: Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) will add as much as 10,000 MW of low-cost, green and clean hydel electricity to enhance the power generation capacity of the country by 2030.

Consequently, the hydel generation would become double to about 20,000 MW from 9,500 MW. In addition, the gross water storage capacity in the country will also enhance by another 12 MAF. This will be a major contribution by WAPDA for economic stability and social uplift of Pakistan.

This was stated by Chairman WAPDA Engineer Lt Gen (Retd) Sajjad Ghani while addressing the first conference of the general managers and project directors, said a press release.

The 2-day conference was held at WAPDA house to review progress on the under-construction projects and discuss the issues to find out ways and means for effective implementation of these projects.

Member finance, member water, member power, general managers and project directors from across the country attended the conference.

Addressing the conference, the chairman said that WAPDA has been a tremendous organisation, which had led national development for decades.

Referring to the development portfolio of projects in hand, the chairman said that WAPDA was the only organisation in the world that was simultaneously constructing the largest number of water and hydropower projects.

During the 2-day conference, the general managers and projects directors made detailed presentations about their projects, which included Diamer Basha Dam, Dasu Hydropower Project, Mohmand Dam, Tarbela 5th Extension, K-IV, Nai Gaj Dam, Kurram Tangi Dam, Kachhi Canal etc.

BEIJING: Beijing on Sunday blasted the Pentagon’s decision to shoot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over North America, accusing the United States of “clearly overreacting and seriously violating international practice”.

“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and protests against the use of force by the United States to attack the unmanned civilian airship,” Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it would “reserve the right to make further necessary responses”.

The craft spent several days flying over North America, ratcheting up tensions between Washington and Beijing, before it was brought down by a missile shot from an F-22 jet on Saturday, Pentagon officials said.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the operation a “deliberate and lawful action” that came in response to China’s “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.

American officials first said on Thursday that they were tracking a large Chinese “surveillance balloon” in US skies. That led Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday to scrap a rare trip to Beijing designed to contain rising US-China tensions.

After initial hesitation, Beijing admitted ownership of the “airship”, but said it was a weather balloon that had been blown off course.

The Chinese foreign ministry on Sunday said it had “clearly requested that the United States properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner”.

Beijing said the United States “insisted on using force, clearly overreacting and seriously violating international practice”.

“China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant enterprises and reserve the right to make further necessary responses,” the ministry said in its statement.

President Joe Biden, who earlier Saturday had promised “to take care” of the balloon, congratulated the fighter pilots involved. “They successfully took it down. And I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden told reporters in Maryland.

The balloon first entered US airspace over Alaska on Jan 28, Pentagon officials told reporters on Saturday, before drifting over Canada and then back into the US days later.

Islamabad: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Government of Pakistan are at a stalemate over 900 billion rupees fiscal gap, a major stumbling block in striking a staff-level agreement, reported Geo News.
IMF has worked out a larger gap of approximately 900 billion rupees, equivalent to 1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

IMF is asking to jack up the GST rate by 1 per cent from 17 to 18 percent or impose 17 percent GST on Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) products, reported Geo News.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is contesting the fiscal gap in achieving the primary deficit. Pakistani authorities have asked the IMF for incorporating a flow of reduction under the revised Circular Debt Management Plan (CDMP) and reduced the amount of required additional subsidy of 605 billion rupees against the earlier target of 687 billion rupees.
Therefore, the fiscal gap stood in the range of 400 billion to 450 billion rupees.

Moreover, top officials have completely ruled out any possibility of IMF condition about the signing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan for reviving the Fund program and said that no such discussions took place with the IMF review mission, reported Geo News.

"Differences still persist over ascertaining the exact fiscal gap between Pakistan and the visiting IMF review mission during the technical levels talks. Once it's finalized with the IMF, then the additional taxation measures will be firmed up, which will be unveiled through the upcoming mini-budget. In view of a lack of reconciliation over the figure of fiscal gap, the technical level talks will continue on Monday and then policy level talks are expected to commence from Tuesday," sources confirmed while talking to a select group of reporters in the background discussions on Saturday.

They said the government agreed in principle with the IMF to abolish electricity and gas tariff subsidies for the export-oriented sector because such kind of dole out was completely unacceptable to the lender.

The exporters' scheme will be revised by bringing major changes to it, said the official, reported Geo News.
The Pakistan authorities conceded that the power sector had so far proved to be a major stumbling block on the way to achieving smooth sailing.

However, the circular debt for the gas sector also remained a problematic area, reported Geo News.
The expenditures overrun will breach the overall budget deficit target of 4.9 per cent of GDP, which is likely to touch 6.5 to 7 per cent for the current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the government is ready to slap the flood levy on affluent segments as well as on imports, impose a levy at the rate of 41 per cent on windfall profits earned by the banking sector, enhance Federal Excise Duty (FED) rate on ci******es, sugary drinks from 13 to 17 per cent, enhance withholding tax rates on a property transaction, air travel abroad and others.

The IMF assessed that the FBR would face a shortfall of 130 billion rupees in achieving the target of 7,470 billion rupees, reported Geo News.

It is expected that both sides would strike a staff-level agreement by the conclusion of the talks on February 9. Then the IMF's Executive Board will consider approval of the next tranche probably in March 2023.

The U.S. Congress cannot support the $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until Ankara ratifies the NATO memberships of Sweden and Finland, a bipartisan group of senators said on Thursday.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the trans-Atlantic defense pact after Russia invaded Ukraine, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey and have since sought to win its support.

Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terror group by Turkey and the European Union, and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

The three nations reached an agreement on a way forward in Madrid last June, but Ankara suspended talks last month following protests in Stockholm in which a far-right Danish politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

In a letter to President Joe Biden, 29 Democratic and Republican senators said the two Nordic countries were making “full and good faith efforts” to meet the conditions for NATO membership that Turkey asked, even though Ankara says Sweden needs to do more.

“Once the NATO accession protocols are ratified by Türkiye, Congress can consider the sale of F-16 fighter jets. A failure to do so, however, would call into question this pending sale,” the senators wrote.

It was the first time Congress explicitly and directly linked the F-16 sale to Turkey with the NATO accession bids of the two Nordic countries.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said it supports the sale and refused to link the two issues, although it acknowledged that the ratification of Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession would facilitate the sale process in Congress.

Turkey has said it could approve Finland’s NATO membership application ahead of Sweden’s, but the Finnish president and foreign minister have both rejected this idea, arguing that the security of the two Nordic countries is mutually dependent.

Of NATO’s 30 members, only Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify the Nordic countries’ memberships.

Turkey requested in October 2021 to buy 40 Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes.

In a visit to Washington last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the NATO issue should not be a precondition for the sale and urged the Biden administration to persuade Congress to drop its objection.

While Congress can block foreign arms sales, it has not previously mustered the two-thirds majorities in both chambers required to overcome a presidential veto.

Dhaka: The International Monetary Fund has signed off on a $4.7 billion support loan package for Bangladesh to help it cope with soaring energy and food costs that have sparked huge protests.
Bangladesh and other South Asian countries dependent on fossil fuel imports were hit hard by sharp cost-of-living increases following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Nationwide blackouts of up to 13 hours a day hit the electricity grid last year and the government extended food relief for households unable to afford rice and other staples.

The IMF package makes $476 million immediately available to the government but commits it to tax hikes and bringing down the number of bad loans in the banking sector.

"Multiple shocks have made macroeconomic management challenging in Bangladesh," the lender's active chair Antoinette Sayeh said in a statement released on Tuesday.

"Authorities need to accelerate their ambitious reform agenda to achieve a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable growth," she said.

Bangladesh plans to use the IMF loan to prop up its foreign exchange reserves, which have nosedived from $46 billion to $34 billion.

The local currency has depreciated around 25 percent against the US dollar since last May, driving up costs for petrol distributors and power utilities that have rippled across the rest of the economy.

Bangladesh's official inflation rate is around 8.7% but independent economists say the true figure is substantially higher.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has blamed the government for the crisis, accusing it of squandering cash on multibillion-dollar vanity projects.

It has organised a series of rallies demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation and a general election.

Bangladesh is one of several South Asian countries seeking international help in navigating economic shocks over the past year.

Pakistan is in the grips of a major crisis and facing the prospect of looming national bankruptcy, with an IMF delegation visiting Tuesday to discuss a vital cash injection.

Sri Lanka is still waiting to finalise its own bailout with the lender after an unprecedented meltdown last year that saw months of major food and fuel shortages.

GENEVA

The World Health Organization head said Monday after listing advice from an advisory body that COVID-19 continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

"The WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the Committee regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and determines that the event continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern," said Tedros Ghebreyesus in a written statement.

After the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee met over the weekend, the WHO chief noted that this week marks the third anniversary of the determination of COVID-19 a PHEIC in January 2020.

"While the world is in a better position than it was during the peak of the Omicron transmission one year ago, more than 170,000 COVID-19-related deaths have been reported globally within the last eight weeks," said Tedros.

"In addition, surveillance and genetic sequencing have declined globally, making it more difficult to track known variants and detect new ones."

Health systems are currently struggling with COVID-19 and caring for patients with influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, health workforce shortages, and fatigued health workers, said the WHO chief.

WHO has confirmed nearly 753 million COVID-19 cases and almost 6.9 million deaths worldwide related to the disease, since the end of January 2022.

- Vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics remain critical

Vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics have remained critical in preventing severe disease, saving lives, and taking the pressure off health systems and health workers globally.

"Yet, the COVID-19 response remains hobbled in too many countries unable to provide these tools to the populations most in need, older people and health workers," said Tedros.

He also said the WHO is urging countries to remain vigilant and continue reporting surveillance and genomic sequencing data and that they recommend appropriately targeted risk-based public health and social measures.

Where necessary, health authorities should vaccinate populations most at risk to minimize severe disease and deaths,

They should conduct regular risk communication, answering population concerns and engaging communities to improve the understanding and implementation of countermeasures, said Tedros.

He said the WHO committee was informed that, globally, 13.1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, with 89% of health workers and 81% of older adults (over 60 years) having completed the primary series.

"Significant progress has also been made in developing effective medical countermeasures," said Tedros.

These include global capacity for genomic sequencing and genomic epidemiology, as well as an understanding of how to manage the infodemic in the new informational ecosystem, including social media platforms.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif will inaugurate Greenline Train today (Friday), which will ply between Islamabad and Karachi.

According to a press release issued by the Pakistan Railways, the Green Line train after starting its journey from Margalla station will have stops at Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Lahore, Khanewal, Bahawalpur, Rohri, Hyderabad and Drug Road on the way.

This train will be operated with new coaches imported from China recently.

The turnaround time of the Green Line is set at 22 hours which will be reduced gradually.

On the instructions of Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafiq, breakfast, lunch, hi tea and dinner will be provided to the passengers during the journey in the ticket price.

Apart from this, high quality bedding and utility kit will also be provided to the passengers.