Category: Business

The most important business news, explained in a young, easy to understand way. News that affects young career professionals.

  • Amazon’s entry to Pakistan expected to create thousands of jobs

    Amazon’s entry to Pakistan expected to create thousands of jobs

    Amazon has finally added Pakistan to its list of seller countries with Pakistanis now able to create accounts using Pakistani credentials and details.

    As per details, several officials including Aisha Moriani (Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce), Omer Gajial (Ex-Amazon Category Development Head for Amazon North America division), and Shoaib Sarwar (deputy Consul General, Consulate General Pakistan, Los Angeles) along with the team members of NECC (National Ecommerce Council) and Badar Khushnood from Pakistan Software Houses Association have played an important role in this development.

    This is a huge milestone and will transform Pakistan’s economy as more sellers from the country will visit the platform.

    Earlier, advisor to Prime Minister (PM) Iman Khan on Commerce and Trade, Abdul Razak Dawood stressed that e-commerce has changed the business practice and that Pakistan must pay attention to it.

    Besides, after COVID-19 e-commerce practices have increased by many folds, and it is a great oppertunity for women, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs.

    On this occasion, Special Assitant to PM, Dr Shahbaz Gill said: “The contemporary government has achieved a milestone that the country had been unable to achieve for more than ten years.”

    “Pakistan will enter into the global market, and it will generate economic activity of millions, that will also create many employment opportunities, thank you, Imran Khan,” he added.

    In addition, Pakistan’s largest EdTech platform, Extreme Commerce has trained millions of people for Amazon selling and trading and complete e-commerce.

    The company has said that “The new era of e-commerce boom for Pakistan is about to start. Get your agencies ready for more business, aa you are about to get flooded with Pakistani manufacturers and brands who would need your services to take them to Amazon. Do your best, do not let the brand Pakistan down ever again, please.”

    In less than 24-48 hours, Pakistan will hopefully show up in the list of allowed countries for Amazon sellers. You…

    Posted by Extreme Commerce on Wednesday, May 5, 2021

  • Governor Sindh Visits K-Electric’s BQPS-III Power Plant, Reviews Swift Progress of Unit One

    Governor Sindh Visits K-Electric’s BQPS-III Power Plant, Reviews Swift Progress of Unit One

    Governor Sindh Imran Ismail visited K-Electric’s Bin Qasim Power Station-III (BQPS-III) project to review the progress on the latest addition to Karachi’s power network. The visit followed a meeting between KE’s Senior Leadership and the Governor Sindh where KE presented an update on the company’s preparedness for Ramadan and the 2021 summer season.

    BQPS-III is a USD 650 million project which will be adding 900 MW of generation capacity to KE’s existing network. This mega-project is progressing on the back of close collaboration between leading engineering firms who are partnering with KE to achieve a shared vision of empowering Karachi. Work is progressing swiftly, and the first unit of 450 MW is over 70% complete and is expected to come online in the next 5 to 6 weeks. The high-efficiency plant will be utilizing RLNG as its primary fuel source. Not only is this expected to reduce the carbon footprint, the inclusion of RLNG will further diversify the company’s fuel mix and bring savings by lowering import costs for the government by eliminating the need for furnace oil.

    KE officials were joined by senior representatives from Siemens, SSGC, and PLL, who apprised the Governor of the progress on the construction of a spur pipeline which will be supplying 150mmcfd of gas to BQPS-III, which is keeping pace with the plant’s progress and is also over 90% complete. The underlying Gas Supply Agreement between SSGC and PLL is also in advanced stages and is expected to be finalized as soon as necessary approvals are received from the Government, ensuring an adequate supply of fuel to energize the plant.

    Commenting on his visit, Governor Imran Ismail said, “The sincerity of the Government of Pakistan is evident in the support they have extended to KE, and I am pleased to see that Sehr and Iftar times during this Ramadan are exempt from load-shed as a result. I’m monitoring the situation daily to ensure that the best possible facilitation is given to the citizens of Karachi. Seeing the scale and progress of work and the commitment with which KE is working, I feel positive for the future of the city. KE’s management and representatives from Siemens, SSGC, and PLL have assured me that they are working to complete the project on time, and I have instructed them to resolve any bottlenecks that may affect the energization of the plant which is expected to be inaugurated by the Honorable Prime Minister. In this process, I have also assured them of my fullest support from my office and from the Government of Pakistan.”

    CEO K-Electric, Moonis Alvi said, “We’re grateful to the Governor Imran Ismail sahab and our partners at Siemens, SSGC, and PLL for visiting BQPS-III today. The timely execution of this project is critical to meet Karachi’s future demand, and we are all working around the clock to ensure the same. I also want to commend the Government of Pakistan for their support to KE and Karachi, especially during Ramadan which has enabled us to fully support Karachi’s power requirements. We look forward to this support in the summer months as well. Without their assistance and collaboration, it would not be possible for us to realize this dream for Karachi.”

    Speaking with media during his visit to under construction BQPS-III site, Mr. Imran Maniar, Managing Director Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) said, “It is very important for us to work together with KE which is also our largest customer. Timely energization of this plant is necessary and we are working with KE to ensure their RLNG requirement is met. SSGC is pleased to be playing its role in this process.”

  • ‘Japan to hire thousands of IT experts from Pakistan’

    ‘Japan to hire thousands of IT experts from Pakistan’

    The Government of Japan has decided to hire thousands of IT professionals from Pakistan in the coming years. As per details, the Japanese government is looking for people with expertise in cloud computing, data sciences, programming and artificial intelligence (AI).

    Delegations from the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) met officials from the Ministry of Overseas and Human Resources Development and experts from the Pakistan Association of Software Houses for IT and ITES (P@SHA) for recruitment.

    It is also mandatory to learn the basic Japanese language besides degrees and required skills to avail job opportunities in Japan.

    Furthermore, the above-stated organisations and departments will give visas, funds for travel and other expenses to the hired candidates.

    Both countries have collaborated because Japan needs programmers and people with expertise in AI and data sciences. But, they added that the Pakistani government have to arrange boot camps for six months to one year to train people with the required skills.

    This step has been taken to balance the cultural diversity as Indians and Bangladeshi IT companies are already dominating the Japanese market.

    The Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC) has recently begun to advertise jobs for hiring different professionals.

    Pakistan is currently producing over 25,000 IT graduates every year in various disciplines of IT and computer sciences.

    Experts say that Pakistan’s export of IT professionals could reach nearly 1,000 per year, which is a good number in the prevailing circumstances.

    The local industry has been expanding its businesses in various dimensions in the past one and half years to meet the demand of the local and foreign markets, which has resulted in significant job openings for new graduates in recent months.

    More than 16,000 Pakistanis reside in various cities of Japan. This community maintains a positive image in Japan and linkages with the department of the host country that help Pakistani students in the pursuit of their careers and businesses.

  • ‘Govt to renegotiate programme with IMF’: Finance Minister

    ‘Govt to renegotiate programme with IMF’: Finance Minister

    The new Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin has said that the government of Pakistan is trying to renegotiate the terms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.

    Tarin said this during the National Assembly Finance and Revenue meeting on Monday. He said he is trying to convince IMF that price hikes in electricity tariffs will only create problems for the people, as the country is already deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “We have assured IMF of reducing circular debt but the demand of increasing tariff is not understandable,” he said.

    Tarin further added that the terms and conditions can also be fulfilled if the government “curtails circular debt through other means instead of increasing the tariff.”

    “Financial and monetary wallets are open all over the world but the IMF’s sword is only hanging over us,” Tarin maintained.

    In addition, the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) cannot be managed by the government, and they must be privatised.

    “The 17 per cent General Sales Tax (GST) rate is very high, and a mechanism has been prepared for its reduction,” he said.

    On stabilising Pakistan’s economy, the finance minister said that the four to five per cent economic growth is enough for Pakistan, and the government will now focus on achieving the above-stated targets.

    He regretted that the government is spending 85 per cent revenue on only nine cities and rarely invests in education and health.

    Unless the country moved to higher economic growth, nothing would improve, and if we continue with stabilisation that has been in place for over two years, neither revenue collection would go up, nor job opportunities would be available to people, he explained.

    He said the government would increase the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) in the next budget and provide equal growth opportunities to all provinces.

    As the country lacks proper planning, Tarin said that he had selected 10 to 12 sectors on which economic experts had already started working so that they could come up with long-term planning for areas such as price stability, agriculture, industry, revenue, housing, social protection, national services, debt management and privatisation of loss-making state-run entities.

    The committee chairman assured the finance minister of all cooperation by committee members.

  • Honda Pakistan to launch already ‘discontinued’ City with decade-old engine

    Honda Pakistan to launch already ‘discontinued’ City with decade-old engine

    The wait is over because Honda Pakistan will soon be launching its new variant of Honda City.

    Competitor companies are already coming up with new models – for example, Toyota recently revealed its most anticipated Yaris series. Hyundai has already launched Tucson and will soon introduce Elantra. New entrants are already coming up with competitive models like MG and Changan. Hence it is imperative for Honda Atlas Pakistan Limited (ATPL) to introduce something worthwhile.

    If you want to know the release details of the car, you need to understand the generation and chassis codes system. The generation of Honda City currently in Pakistan is as old as the fifth generation in line with chassis code GM2/GM3.

    The 5th gen model was replaced by the 6th gen back in 2014. The 6th gen had chassis code GM4/GM5/GM6/GM9. The Honda City in our region (ASEAN) is known as GM6, and it came in 2014 and remained till 2019.

    Logically, the GM6 variant will be replaced with the most recent model of Honda City (7th gen) that was launched in Thailand in November 2019. However, Pakistan has been unable to launch the 7th gen is because it follows the Honda Indonesia product lineup. Honda has not yet introduced the 7th gen model in Indonesia.

    Besides, when it comes to the design and performance of the new Honda City: it is bolder, bigger and as per Honda, much better equipped with improved driving dynamics.

    However, some reports have suggested that Honda Atlas is working on bringing the GN1, which is the newest generation of Honda City, but it is not happening anytime soon.

    According to Pakistan Import Data, Honda Altas imported Complete Built Units (CBU) of the 6th generation (one model before 7th gen) from Thailand.

    The data further shows that this variant will have an L15Z engine with a 1.5L engine; it is the same engine that we have in the contemporary model of Honda City.

    Importing the 6th gen model means one thing: Honda imports the foreign model and then after analysis, starts local production. But there are chances that car enthusiasts will severely criticise this decision as Honda Thailand has already discontinued the 6the gen model.

    Instead of introducing the 7th gen model, Honda fans will get a ‘new model’ that has been discontinued globally, with reportedly, the same decade-old engine.

  • Pakistan is the next IT powerhouse, says JICA

    Pakistan is the next IT powerhouse, says JICA

    Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has said that Pakistan is the “powerhouse of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector” as the country tech exports climbed six times in one decade.

    In JICA’s official statement, digital Pakistan policy 2018 is the key driving factor behind the success of the IT sector in Pakistan. Besides, six-time growth is the highest growth rate in entire South Asia.

    The fundamental reason behind the IT growth is the competitiveness and the presence of a large number of freelancers that are willing to give quality services at affordable rates.

    The report published by JICA was a year-long researched based study that was conducted in collaboration with Pakistan Embassy Tokyo.

    The publication has also placed Pakistan as a new partner for Japanese IT companies. The report gives an overview of the ICT industry in Pakistan, its performance in IT exports, the support structure provided by the Pakistani government, a pool of skilled and young human resource and achievements of a growth-led ecosystem equally owned by public and private sectors.

    This study includes an “IT skills survey 2021”, which found that Pakistani ICT engineers are highly skilled in programming, software development, data processing and analysis, infrastructure architecture and cloud engineering.

    The report also includes feedback on Pakistani ICT engineers already working in Japan who consider Pakistan an untapped market for Japanese IT companies, encouraging them to know more about Pakistan and its collective potential in ICT.

    Ambassador of Pakistan to Japan Imtiaz Ahmad welcomed the project team in March 2020, offering them complete support of the Mission while thanking JICA for its continued support in export and development sectors in Pakistan.

    In the past, the same team of experts from JICA has rolled out various projects for human resource development; value addition in textiles; technical training and water and sanitation infrastructure in Pakistan.

  • Facebook will now ask iOS users to allow data tracking for ‘better ads experience’

    Facebook will now ask iOS users to allow data tracking for ‘better ads experience’

    As per details, Facebook has started urging iPhone and iPad users to allow data tracking. The social media giant said that users should allow this for a better and personalized ads experience.

    Apple recently decided to ramp up privacy of its users, and gave users an option if they want to allow social media applications to track their data.

    Both companies are in some sort of war with each other, a war that has been raging for more than one decade now.

    The founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg recently termed Apple Inc. as the biggest competitor, and he said that the new privacy policy of Apple will cause “damage to the business of millions of users.”

    The very next day CEO of Apple Tim Cook, during a data privacy conference in Brussels, said: “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reforms.”

    The battle focuses on a unique device identifier on every iPhone and iPad called the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Companies that sell mobile advertisements, including Facebook, use this ID to help target ads and estimate their effectiveness.

    With the latest iOS 14 update, each app that wants to use the tracker will have to seek permission from the user. Consequently, it will make the mobiles ads less effective.

    Facebook has already started warning investors that these changes will affect the business, and now the company is testing the effects of the new updates.

    Besides, form today when users will open the app, they will see a message box that will tell users why they must allow Facebook to track their data.

    “Allow Facebook to use your app and website activity?” and claims that Facebook uses that information to “provide a better ads experience.” It will then offer users a choice between “Don’t Allow” and “Allow.”

    No matter which selection users make on the Facebook prompt, if they choose not to allow tracking on the Apple pop-up, that choice will be final, and Facebook will honour it.

  • Biden returns billions Trump approved for US-Mexico border wall

    Biden returns billions Trump approved for US-Mexico border wall

    President of the United States (US) Joe Biden has decided to hold back funds of Pentagon that were directed by former President Donald Trump to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

    The funds will be now used to fix the damages that were caused while the wall was under construction.

    According to reports, an official from the US government said that the Pentagon will begin cancelling all wall projects using the diverted funds, and the administration will take steps to return remaining unobligated military construction forms their appropriated purpose.

    The decision came when Joe Biden took over the office and signed a “proclamation” that directed the Pentagon to halt the flow of money to build the border wall, which was already ruled illegal by the federal court of US in June 2020.

    The Department of Homeland Security also announced plans to repair holes in flood levees at the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and fix soil erosion in San Diego created by border wall construction, neither of which will involve creating more barriers.

    The amount of money that the Trump administration allocated to build the wall was as high as $14 billion, says the official.

    According to the background details, the lawmakers of bipartisan put pressure on the government to make repairments against the damage caused due to the holes that drilled for wall construction.

    On this occasion, an influential American politician and attorney Ted Cruz commented that “I am pleased President Biden and the Department of Homeland Security are listening and now moving to shore up the levee wall system that had been unthoughtful. The repairs are necessary, crucial, and urgently needed.”

    In response, the chief critic senator Rick Scott uttered that “How can Biden possibly justify stopping wall construction?”, calling on Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to “immediately explain President Biden’s ridiculous order, how it is compliant with federal law and the awful consequences it will have on the current crisis.”

  • KP assembly adopts resolution on Facebook’s monetisation

    KP assembly adopts resolution on Facebook’s monetisation

    The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at allowing Facebook’s monetisation in Pakistan.

    Moved by Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Ziaullah Bangash of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, the resolution recommended to the provincial government to ask the federal government to take steps to “turn on” Facebook’s monetisation so that its users, especially the youth, could benefit from the positive use of the media platform and earn money.

    The resolution pointed out that the speaker of the National Assembly had already held a meeting with Facebook officials in which it was decided that steps would be taken to “turn on” monetisation of the platform in the country.

    It added that 50 million Facebook users in the country, especially the youth, could benefit from the move.

  • Pakistan exports to neighbouring countries drop by alarming level

    Pakistan exports to neighbouring countries drop by alarming level

    Due to the COVID-19 crises, Pakistan exports in the region have dropped by 5.7 per cent in the nine months of the current fiscal year, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) revealed on Monday.

    Pakistan exported goods and services as little as $2.788 billion to neighbouring countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, India and Iran.

    Data revealed by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)

    The figure is just 14.91 per cent of the total global export of Pakistan, which stood at $18.688 billion in the current fiscal year.

    Pakistan largely exported to China; they are at the top of the list, leaving India and Bangladesh behind.

    In terms of percentage, Pakistan exports to China are 50.46 per cent, and the remaining share is for eight other countries.

    Exports to China also experienced a growth of 8.4 per cent, which is $1.407 billion in FY2021 from 1.298 billion in FY2020.

    Unfortunately, the trade ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have declined and faced political and policy turmoils. The exports to Afghanistan have fallen by 5.57 per cent that is just $746.328 million in FY2021. In FY2020, the exports between Afghanistan and Pakistan stood at $790,377 million.

    Afghanistan has also been removed as the second biggest trade partner of Pakistan, and Afghanistan replaced India as the most important trade partner.

    Trade ties between Pakistan and India are also topsy turvy. The government has suspended trade with India. Earlier, the Economic Corridor Committee (ECC) approved the import of cotton and yarn from India, but then the decision was reversed for political reasons.

    The exports to Iran jumped 374 per cent to $0.261m in 9MFY21 from $0.055m in 9MFY20. Most of the trade with Tehran is carried out through informal channels in border areas of Balochistan.

    Exports to Bangladesh decreas­­ed by 13.56 per cent that is $438.418m in FY2021. Islam­abad has recently reached out to Dhaka to revive talks to facilitate trade between the two countries.

    Similarly, exports to Sri Lanka dipped by 24.2 per cent to $185.883m from $245.131m in the previous year.

    During Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent visit to Sri Lanka, both countries agreed to exploit the available potential of bilateral trade.

    Exports to Nepal dropped by 82.6 per cent to $3.502m from the previous year while those to the Maldives dipped by 28.96 per cent to $4.044m from $5.693m.

    Exports to Bhutan were recorded at $0.043m as compared to $0.094m over the last year. In March, no exports proceeds were sent to the Maldives.

    On the other hand, the country’s trade deficit with the region narrowed as imports from these countries also dipped.