Today Nawaz leaving for Three-day Turkey visit

ISLAMABAD: On Monday, September 16, 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s maiden visit to one of the closest and brotherly country Turkey is beginning. It would open new vistas and horizons of ties of the two historically close countries since it will mark the start of an unprecedented era of cooperation in numerous fields.

The prime minister is scheduled to stay in Turkey for three days and will engage in back-to-back interactions and result-oriented meetings with the top leadership of the host country. During his stay in Turkey, the prime minister will also meet President Abdullah Gul and co-chair the third session of the High Level Cooperation Council (HLCC).

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No devaluation, no compromise over the value of Rupee:

 

Finance minister has showed great deal of anguish over the issue of depreciation of rupee, as predicted by the eminent economic expert of the country. Considering the seriousness of the issue Dar has decided to comment on the issue public ally, this shows his great concern about the value of rupee. The recent deal with IMF is under great discussion by the economist and the recent shift about the deprecation in rupee they considered is the aftereffects of that deal. Ishaq Dar comments over the issue that “I am disappointed to come across comments and analysis by certain eminent economic experts that the rupee is bound to depreciate to 114 (to a dollar) as a result of some implicit understanding between the government of Pakistan and IMF.”

He totally reject the idea that Government and IMF has entered into an agreement to depreciate the value of rupee by 14%. He just throws out this notion and rejects this perception that the value of rupee will fall 14%within a year against dollar. If it is then it will have great impact on foreign exchange rates. He further embarks over the issue and tries to pacify the jolting markets and gave a very strong verdict and called the critics “Pseudo Intellectuals” He further said that there is no adjustment over the depreciation of rupee against dollar with IMF. “Let me assure you that there is neither any explicit nor implicit understanding with the IMF on the devaluation of rupee.”

His recent comments are the aftereffects of IMF report that is based on real effective exchange rate that is showing that rupee will be devalued by 7.7% during 2013-14. On the other hand, economist did great criticism over the IMF assessment; they claimed that the country economy will be cleaned out. If we see the interbank market situation the rupee was traded at the value of 105 against per dollar. But after report its value is more declined in the open market currency rates.The finance minister blamed the speculators who spread such news and thus causing to devaluing the rupee. He said “I am allergic to the words dictated devaluation.” To some extent he is right but IMF report should not be taken non-seriously, it is very serious issue. So is the responsibility to the economic analysts they need to work in a positive way, ishaq was much disappointed when he pointed economists. “I expect all professionals to be more responsible,” he further said that “pessimistic pseudo intellectuals will keep predicting that Pakistan will be a one-tranche country that will miss its key targets again.”

Finance minister was greatly agitated it seems, he said all economists should play a positive role and should work for the nation and on one policy not for their vested interest. He only means not to spread negativism among the people because it will be disastrous for the economy. He said that negotiation with IMF has been done without any compromise over the national interest. The IMF program has been settled on the standards of home-grown reform agenda. Dar is hopeful and optimistic about foreign exchange reserves of the country. He is expecting foreign exchange reserves will be improved up to $20 billion and public debt will be reduce to 57.5% of GDP that is currently 63.5%.

Short-term suspension: PIA stops flights to India, Germany, Netherlands

KARACHI: Faced with shortage of aircraft, the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) rolled back flights to Germany, Netherlands and India.

A spokesman for the national flag carrier said the decision was taken in the wake of a review of flight operations to find the best way to utilize existing fleet of aircraft, some of which are already busy with the massive Hajj operation. He added, “Flights to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Delhi and Mumbai were also running below capacity,” The spoke person said, this decision is, however, temporary and the flights to European destination will resume after the end of the “lean season in November.” The decision to discontinue flights has been severely criticized by the airline’s employees who blame the management for doing irreparable damage to the state airliner. It will become difficult for the PIA to attract passengers once they start travelling with other carriers, foresees one of the airline’s unions. PIA was operating six weekly flights to India and one each to Frankfurt and Amsterdam. The airline had to deploy two of its Boeing 777s and as many B-747s for the Hajj flights, which will run till November 18.Joint Action Committee of PIA’s Employees, which represents the pilots, says seat booking volume rose in the last six months and revenue was more than 50 percent on the route of Islamabad to Frankfurt.

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Today Mamnoon Takings Pledge as 12th President of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: On Monday, Today, President-elect Mamnoon Hussain will take pledge as the 12th president of Pakistan.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry would administer the oath. The oath-taking ceremony would be held at the President House at 05:00pm for which invitations were already issued. It is expected that the outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari, who ceased to hold office on Sunday midnight, would attend the ceremony. The Prime Minister, Chief of Army Staff, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, services chiefs, diplomats, federal cabinet members and family members and family friends of President-elect Mamnoon Hussain would be attending the prestigious ceremony which would be historic in its nature because for the first time in the country’s history a democratically elected president would be handing over the charge to another democratically elected president on completion of his mandated five years term. Foundations in the government knowledgeable that around 60 invitation cards were issued to the President-elect to invite his family members, relatives and friends on his installation ceremony as president of Pakistan. It is interesting to note that among the guests at oath-taking ceremony some four former prime ministers including Mir Zafarullah Jamali, Ch Shujaat Hussain, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf would likely be present. It is pertinent to mention here that President-elect Mamnoon Hussain has shifted to Awan-I-Sadr some couple of days back and he was introduced to the staff at President House and apprised of the working pattern.

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KSE closes in black after five successive bearish days

The KSE was recovered after the impending threat of attack on Syria, during the day it just try to complete the loss. Earlier part of the day KSE observed a buying trend. Karachi stock exchange benchmark 100-share index has been raised from 83.80 points to 808.48 today after the impending fears of attack on Syria. Market bears five consecutive days the bearish trend. It was only the fear of strike on Syria. Market suffers low market volume of 149 million due to the U.S expected airstrike on Syria. But thanks to the heaven it did not happen in anyway. The market shows great upward trend when the news of attack on Syria is faded away. 359 companies has taken part in market activity, by the end of the day 181 companies closed did great business and 131 have experienced decline in their share value while 45 remained unaffected. While the gold prices in Pakistan remain unaffected. The shares traded during the day worth Rs. 5.9 billion.

Faisal Bilwani of Elixir Research stated that “Pakistan equities closed green after five consecutive negative sessions with a bounce back mainly in index names on institutional buying. Stocks traded volatile with KSE100 testing 22k, however selling at highs pushed stocks down to close with trimmed gains.” He further added that “Pakistan Telecom (PTC PA +5%) led the show hitting upper lock on interest following hopes of progress on 3G license auction while Lucky Cement LUCK PA also gained and traded against sector direction despite ambiguity over cement pricing and capacity utilization going forward.” Thus these are the healthy signs for open market currency in Pakistan.

“The KSE index continued with its bearish trend by opening negatively, however interest in good dividend yielding stocks ended the day for KSE-100 Index in the green. Major shift in sentiment was believed to be due to an ongoing visit by the prime minister to Karachi in order to improve the law and order situation in the city” Said Adeel Jafri of JSGlobal.Trade volume was contracted as compared to Monday tally that was 180 million shares. Bank of Punjab was the leading bank which traded its shares worth 16 million and gained Rs.0.14 that is ended on Rs. 12.02. Fauji Cement was the second leading company which did good trading worth Rs. 13 million shares and gained Rs.1.02 and is clos4ed at the value of Rs 24.32. Followed by National Cleaning Company of Pakistan Limited the foreign investors did the net selling of Rs. 214 million.

Govt Slightest Concerned to Follow Cases against Zardari

ISLAMABAD: Even after relinquishing the charge of President of Pakistan on September 8, Asif Ali Zardari will have little to worry about, as on one hand in the absence of Chairman NAB none of the pending corruption cases against him could be restored while on the other hand the tamed Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) government seemed least bothered about pursuing the corruption cases against him (Zardari) in home as well as abroad.

Some six corruption cases against President Zardari are pending with NAB courts and all of these cases were adjourned sane die when he stepped into the office of President of Pakistan, who under the constitution has immunity against all sort of criminal proceedings till the time he is in the office of the President.  But now he would lose all the perks and privileges when he would relinquish the office of President on September 8 and under the law he would also lose the presidential immunity against criminal proceedings. Interestingly even after losing the presidential immunity and other perks and privileges on September 8 when he would relinquish the office of the President, no corruption cases pending against him in the NAB court could be reopened as the same would require the formal request from the office of the Chairman NAB, the slot vacant for past several months. In the light of the information gathered from various sources it could safely be said that the appointment of new chairman would at least take another month or so because so far no formal meeting between the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly and Prime Minister, the main consulates in making appointment of Chairman NAB, could take place. Foundations in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) informed The Nation that the party leadership was least interested in vigorously pursuing the corruption cases against President Zardari and they would let the cases die their natural death in the courts of law. Although soon after taking over the reins of power Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif had announced on the floor of the National Assembly that they would make the looters and plunderers of national wealth to cough up each and every penny of the taxpayers money, yet when it comes to practice they were contrary to their claims, as no serious attempt was made by the government to get the money laundering case against President Zardari revived in Switzerland, which was neutralized on technical grounds by the previous government. Legal and constitutional experts were of the view that the case against President Zardari in Switzerland could be revived with a little effort but instead of making some effort to get the case restored the PML-N government was sleeping on the matter raising suspicion of complicity with Pakistan People’s Party.

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