Wednesday, 12 September,2012

ISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

THE 5th South Asia Eco-nomic Summit kicked offTuesday saying trade aloneis not enough for deeper re-gional integration, it has to

be complimented with reforms relatedto investment, a cooperativemechanism to manageand utilize natural re-sources such aswater and cooper-ation betweenregulatory bodiesand promotion ofsupply chains.

“While govern-ments are currentlymore focused ontrade agenda, it re-mains the respon-sibility ofcivil

society to keep reminding the govern-ments of such issues as well which in nomanner are less important than trade,”cautioned the speakers. The 3-day sum-mit is going to discuss issues relating toSouth Asia economic outlook, impacts ofglobal financial crisis, regional trade, en-ergy cooperation, transport connectiv-ity, trade normalization and engagingyouth and Diaspora for economic

growth. Over 114 foreign delegates,including ministers are partici-

pating in the summit. Recom-mendations of the summitwould be submitted toSAARC Secretariat ahead ofthe upcoming annual SAARC

Summit to be held in Nepalthis year.

Speaking at the inauguralsession of the Summit, Fed-eral Minister of Defence,Syed Naveed Qamar called

upon the South Asian govern-ments to look at the

disconnection

between macro and micro economic per-formance so that they can realisticallyaddress growing poverty and improvesocial sector. He asked the scholars at-tending the summit to offer advice to thegovernments on trade in services andagricultural goods, intra regional move-ment of people and trade in areas suchas energy.

“Unless we fight poverty, illiteracyand poor health standards in South Asiaand complement this struggle with en-abling environment for businesses togenerate employment – it will remain achallenge to compete with other regionsof the world,” the minister concluded.

He said on the trade front, we havetaken concrete steps in reducing barriersto trade in South Asia and duties onintra-regional trade are being slashed tounprecedented levels.

Stressing the need to understandSouth Asia’s perspective on post-2015development forecast, the minister said:“We live in a region with regular naturaldisasters in the form of droughts, floods

and earthquakes and it’s now time to re-alize that we have not paid much atten-tion to address the impacts of climatechange in this region.”

In his welcome speech, SDPI Execu-tive Director, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleripraised the incumbent political leader-ships of India and Pakistan for recentlandmark initiatives such as new visaregime, MFN status to India by Pakistanand Indian decision allowing investmentby Pakistani investors. He said, “We cannow see new clouds of hope amidst yearsof mistrust.” He hoped that new agree-ments and advancement on issues relat-ing to development would herald anoptimistic future in South Asia. How-ever, it cannot happen without an inclu-sive and pro-poor growth that benefitsto all citizens addressing economic dis-parity within and between countries.

Rajiva Wijesinha, Member of Parlia-ment, Sri Lanka said, many developedcountries are pushing for freeing capitalmovements but are denying freer move-ment of labor across the world.

JS Bank to benefitfrom HSBC acquisition

KARACHI

STAFF REPORT

The HSBC Bank is said to have agreed tosell its Pakistani operations to JS BankLimited. However, the transaction issubject to regulatory approval and theapproval of the stakeholders of both theparties, namely the HBME and JSBL.According to market observers, theacquisition would give the JS Bank muchmore than the customer base. Theanalysts at InvestCap Research opine thatcontrary to popular opinion, JSBL’sinterest in HSBC’s Pakistani operation hasto do with much more than its premiumcustomer base. They said the primefactors that made the former to acquirethe latter include HSBC’s strong footprintin the consumer banking segment,something which JSBL lacks, enhancingthe tier 1 capital of the bank, as JSBL hadfallen short on State Bank’s prescribedMinimum Capital Requirement (MCR)during CY11 and face the music this timearound, as the MCR has been raised toRs9bn (For CY12). Thirdly, they said thesuperior information technologyinfrastructure and better riskmanagement parameters of HSBC, whichare highlighted by the infection ratio ofmere 3% during 1HCY12 againstJSBL’s12% during the same period.

Neighborly talksPak, India commerce secretaries’talks in last week of September

ISLAMABAD

ONLINE

Commerce Secretaries talks betweenPakistan and India have scheduled to beheld last week of September, officialsources informed on Monday. Earlierthese talks were scheduled to be heldfrom September 11-13 but it was notpossible to hold talks as both thecountries have to prepare themselves inaccording with the outcome achieved inForeign Minister level talks, explainedthe official. The foreign ministers leveltalks concluded last Saturday have beentermed as reason for delay in trade talks.Pakistan had earlier agreed to abolishthe negative list of products by midDecember so as to complete the tradeliberalization from January 1, 2013.Indian side had agreed to accordapproval to the three agreements forstandardization of the standards andother technical specifications asproposed by Pakistan for providing levelplaying field to Pakistani exporters.

LAHORE

APP

Deputy Prime Minister and PML-Q senior leader ChaudhryPervaiz Elahi said on Tuesday that many mega projectswere underway for the economic revival of the country, in-cluding establishment of Export Processing Zones all overthe country and implementation of a new industrial policythat is being formulated in consultation with the businesscommunity.

Talking to LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh and VicePresident Saeeda Nazar during a meeting at his residencehere, he said, “When we got the charge of the EPZA, its landwas under occupation of land grabbers, now 100 acres ofland has been retrieved on which the Export ProcessingZone would be established.” He said EPZA offices would beset up all over the country including Karachi so that moreindustrial estates could be established and new job oppor-tunities created. The Deputy Prime Minister said the gov-ernment was aware of problems of trade and industry dueto power crisis and added that a remarkable cut in load-shedding would be witnessed in the coming months.

He said the proposed industrial policy would pave theway for acceleration of industrial activity in the country, ul-timately boosting exports, alleviating poverty and unem-ployment. He said that the Lahore Chamber of Commercewould be taken on board well before the finalization of theupcoming industrial policy.

He said the government was focusing on implementa-tion of long term policies so that true results could be pro-duced for the benefit of the common man. The promotion

of Indo-Pak trade would go a long way in bringing peaceand prosperity in South Asia, he said, asserting that to helpcope with imports from India, the government was endeav-oring to strengthen the local industrial sector.

Pervaiz Elahi said that all possible measures were beingtaken to ensure continuity in economic policies that was aprerequisite to turn the country a hub of economic activitiesand to achieve the goal all stakeholders including chambersof commerce in the country would beconsulted.

Earlier, the LCCI presidentapprised the Deputy Prime Minis-ter of the challenges being facedby the business community, sayingthat electricity shortage had forcedthe businessmen to shift their op-erations to other places.

On trade with India, theLCCI president said that it isa welcome sign but the gov-ernment would have to fa-cilitate the businesscommunity to enable itto cope with a biggereconomy. He said theLCCI had conveyed itsconcern over non-tariffbarriers by India whichneeded to be addressed asthey were hitting hard Pak-istani businessmen.

‘Let’s rebuild South Asia’

‘Mega projects to revive economy’

Not trade alone, but reforms in investment regime, cooperative mechanism tomanage natural resources vital for regional integration

Economy digs itself out of ‘War on Terror’ quagmire ISLAMABAD

APP

Despite challenges of war on terrorism,energy crisis and global economic melt-down, the economy of the country sus-tained growth during the past four yearsas it is suggested by the major economicindicators including, foreign exchangereserves, workers remittances, inflationand industrial growth.

Four years back, when Asif AliZardari took the office of the Presidentof Pakistan, the political and economicconditions of the country were at tran-sitional phase from a dictatorial regimeto a democratically elected presidentand parliament. Pakistan’s economywas in a shabby condition, foreign ex-change reserves were fast depleting andthe balance of payment position was ina difficult situation.

Under the wise leadership of Presi-dent Asif Ali Zardari, PPP took toughdecisions including austerity measures,steps for enhancing revenues enhancespending on social welfare and socialsafety nets to benefit the poor and vul-

nerable segment of the society.President Asif Ali Zadari gave a new

direction to present government byraising slogan of “Trade not aid” andurged the government to focus onboosting its exports and exploit local re-sources in this regard. Pakistan hadbeen confronted with security chal-lenges since 2001 after the 9/11 episodeand so far Pakistan has spent over $ 80billion on war against terrorism.

President Asif Ali Zardari in his re-cent address to NAM summit held inIran said “Terrorism is a global threat.No country has suffered so much fromit as Pakistan. We have lost more than40,000 innocent lives. Our economiclosses are almost 80 billion dollars”.

However, despite all these chal-lenges the economy sustained growthduring the past four years. Although thecampaign against terrorism coupledwith financial meltdown and spike incommodity and oil prices had led to in-flation, the country still managed econ-omy and controlled commodity prices.

Now the Consumer Prices Index(CPI) went down to single digit during

the month of August. Official sources said that the surge

in food and commodity prices wit-nessed during 2008-09 pushed the CPIto a record level of 25.3 percent in Au-gust 2008, however during the monthof August 2012, the CPI recorded just asingle digit increase.

On the other hand, the Industrialsector of the country also sustained pos-itive growth during the period despiteseveral challenges of electricity and gasshortage coupled with law and order sit-uation and natural calamities.

The Large Scale Manufacturing(LSM) output increased by 1.17 percentduring the fiscal year 2011-12 as againstthe same period of last year.

Meanwhile, the remittances fromthe overseas Pakistanis are also increas-ing with each passing year and duringthe year 2011-12 it crossed the $13 bil-lion mark.

Pakistan has been witnessing agrowing surge in remittances since thepresent democratic government tookover in 2008, the sources said addingthat from mere $6.4 billion remittances

in 2008, the fiscal year 2011-12 sawrecord remittances of over $13 billion.

During the month of August 2012,overseas Pakistanis remitted an amountof $ 1.204 billion in July 2012 showingan impressive growth of 9.89 percent or$108.40 million when compared with$1.096 billion received during the samemonth of the last fiscal year (FY-12).

Analysts are of the view that risingforeign remittances have not onlybrought stability to value of Pakistanirupee, but also played key role in nar-rowing down gap between foreign pay-ments and receipts.

The rising remittances, secondmajor source of foreign exchange earn-ings after exports, practically helped thecountry with record foreign exchangereserves despite high oil prices andcostly imports.

The exports from the country alsocrossed the psychological barrier of$25 billion during the previous fiscalyear (2010-11) and remained almostnear to this target during the fiscalyear 2011-12, showing stability inoverall macro economy.

$2.46 billion!Overseas Pakistanis remit over$2.46b during first two monthsof FY13

KARACHI

STAFF REPORT

The Pakistanis working overseas sent backhome over $2.463 billion during the firsttwo months, July–August, of the currentfiscal year 2012‐13, said the central bankon Tuesday. This shows a growth of 2.36percent or $56.91 million compared to$2.406 billion the country had receivedduring the same period of FY12. The inflowof remittances during the months in reviewfrom Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, GCCcountries, including Bahrain, Kuwait,Qatar and Oman, and EU countriesamounted to $657.78 million, $505.80million, $446.61 million, $334.06 million,$274.09 million and $63.57 million,respectively, as compared with the inflowof $601.62 million, $552.11 million,$458.45 million, $282.45 million, $250.76million and $74.97 million in same monthslast year. The remittances received fromNorway, Switzerland, Australia, Canada,Japan and other countries amounted to $181.78 million as against $186.42 millionreceived last year. The monthly averageremittances for July‐August 2012 periodcomes out to $1,231.85 million ascompared to $1,203.39 million during thelast year’s corresponding period. Some$1,258.98 million were remitted byoverseas Pakistanis in August as against $1,310.47 million in the same month ofFY12. In August 2012, the inflow ofremittances from Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA,UK, GCC countries and EU countries wascounted at $308.12 million, $265.26million, $231.31 million, $185.57 million,$133.73 million and $32.74 million,respectively, as compared with the inflowof $309.79 million, $ 294.46 million,$263.58 million, $163.90 million, $134.31million and $42.38 million respectively inAugust, 2011. The remittances receivedfrom Norway, Switzerland, Australia,Canada, Japan and other countries duringthe second month of current fiscal year(August FY13) amounted to $102.25million as against $102.05 million receivedin the second month of last fiscal year(August FY12). “The continued growth inworkers’ remittances is the result of theefforts made by Pakistan RemittanceInitiative (PRI) in collaboration with otherstakeholders to facilitate both overseasPakistanis and their families back home,”said the State Bank.

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02

Wednesday, 12 September, 2012

Major Gainers

COmPANY OPEN HIgH LOw CLOSE CHANgE TURNOvERUnilever FoodXD 3269.00 3432.45 3432.45 3432.45 163.45 20Colgate PalmolivSPOT 1325.00 1350.05 1350.00 1350.00 25.00 2,000Island Textile 305.00 320.25 300.00 320.00 15.00 2,900National Foods 248.75 261.18 248.25 259.56 10.81 260,200Abbott Lab.XD 199.99 209.98 199.00 207.82 7.83 57,400

Major LosersBata (Pak) Limited 1050.00 1099.99 997.50 1000.00 -50.00 300Shield Corpor 146.00 140.00 138.70 138.70 -7.30 900Ismail Industr 140.00 133.00 133.00 133.00 -7.00 500Indus Dyeing 405.00 400.00 400.00 400.00 -5.00 2,000Shell Pakistan Ltd. 138.30 137.75 133.00 133.76 -4.54 43,000

Volume Leaders

P.T.C.L.A 19.61 19.80 18.63 18.81 -0.80 21,216,000K.E.S.C. 7.45 7.94 7.42 7.50 0.05 16,527,000JS Bank Ltd 6.20 6.49 5.90 5.99 -0.21 10,042,500Engro Corporation 108.09 110.75 106.80 109.47 1.38 8,789,300Pace (Pak) Ltd. 3.46 3.65 3.36 3.41 -0.05 7,659,500

Interbank RatesUS Dollar 94.6339UK Pound 151.5184Japanese Yen 1.2114Euro 121.0936

Dollar EastBUY SELL

US Dollar 94.50 95.00Euro 120.67 121.81Great Britain Pound 150.84 152.23Japanese Yen 1.2028 1.2138Canadian Dollar 96.24 97.63Hong Kong Dollar 11.99 12.17UAE Dirham 25.61 25.82Saudi Riyal 25.09 25.27Australian Dollar 97.62 99.97

Business

TOKYO

AFP

THE dollar weakened in Asia Tuesdaywith markets eyeing a US FederalReserve meeting later in the week,while the euro firmed as risk senti-ment rose on upbeat China data.

The dollar was quoted at 78.20 yen in Tokyoafternoon trade from 78.27 yen in New Yorklate Monday. The euro bought $1.2772from $1.2758 while it was at 99.90yen from 99.86 yen in US trade.

Dollar-yen trading wouldlikely stay within a narrow rangeas markets speculate aboutwhether the US central bankmeeting on Wednesday andThursday will see a third roundof bond buying, or quantita-tive easing, to power thew o r l d ’ sl a r g e s te c o n o m y ,dealers said.

“Opinion ismixed towardwhether the Fed wouldinitiate QE3 (a thirdround of quantitative eas-ing), and the market is having a hard time fac-toring in a possible outcome,” said KengoSuzuki, forex analyst at Mizuho Securities inTokyo. There was also caution ahead of a Ger-

man court ruling on the eurozone’s bailoutfund, but the euro won a measure of support onupbeat Chinese data that showed bank lendingin August grew to 703.9 billion yuan ($112 bil-lion), up from 540.1 billion yuan in July.

The data from the People’s Bank of Chinasurpassed market expectations of 600 billion

yuan in new loans, according to a fore-cast of 13 economists surveyed by Dow

Jones Newswires.Last week, the euro jumped

above 100 yen for the first time intwo months after the European

Central Bank said it would buybonds from troubled eurozone

nations in a bid to bring downtheir borrowing costs and

prop up the currency. Buteuro sentiment had damp-ened since, owing to

broader worries about thebloc sinking into recession,

while traders looked to Wednes-day’s German court ruling on the

European Stability Mechanism bailout fund(ESM), dealers said. The court, which is due to

rule on the constitutional legality of Berlin takingpart in a rescue fund set up to support under-pres-sure countries, was not expected to block the ESM.

Also Wednesday, the Netherlands holdsparliamentary elections for the second time intwo years after a tight race dominated by eco-nomic uncertainty thanks to Europe’s long-run-ning debt crisis.

PTCL shows impressivegrowth, posting revenue of Rs 60 billion for FY 2011-12ISLAMABAD: Country’s leading integratedtelecommunication services provider, PakistanTelecommunications Company Limited (PTCL),has posted net profit of Rs 7.24 billion in FY 2011-12. The company also showed a steady growth of9% in revenue. The annual accounts were an-nounced at the company’s Board of Directorsmeeting. PRESS RELEASE

Cardiovascular diseases accountfor 100,000 deaths in PakistanKARACHI: A medical educational program fo-cused on raising disease management awarenessand to share the latest scientific advancementsin the area of cardiovascular disease startedhere in Karachi. Pfizer Pakistan supported se-ries of events are going to be held across thecountry and are aimed towards healthcare pro-fessionals – both the specialists in the field ofcardiology as well as leading general physicians.PRESS RELEASE

Intel to launch low-powerprocessors to fuel future ofmobile computing innovationISLAMABAD: Starting with the company’s 4thgeneration Intel® Core™ processor family, Intel‘slow-power processors will set a new standard for mo-bile computing experiences and innovative Ultra-book™, convertible and tablet designs. PRESS RELEASE

BOK Karak Branch formallyinauguratedKARAK: The Bank of Khyber (BOK) is committed toprovide prompt and quality services in order to caterto the financial needs of the business community andgeneral public across the country with special empha-sis to the less developed areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwaand for this purpose the Bank has undertaken rapidexpansion of its branch network. PRESS RELEASE

3rd LADIESFUND EntrepreneurshipConference on 15thKARACHI: The 3rd LADIESFUND Entrepre-neurship Conference (LEC) 2012, featuring suc-cess stories of fabulous personalities, career andnetworking opportunities with a vast circle of over600 VIPs, women entrepreneurs, male and femalestudents, media, and a grand exhibition is going tobe held on Saturday, September 15, 2012 at theBahria Auditorium. PRESS RELEASE

Pakistan Envoy invitesEuropean companies to investin Energy SectorBERLIN: Pakistan’s ambassador to GermanyAbdul Basit has encouraged European companies,especially German, to look at Pakistan alsothrough a regional prism as the country was des-tined to become a regional economic hub. Ad-dressing the participants of one-day Conferenceon “Solar Energy in Pakistan” held in Munich onTuesday, Basit in his keynote address stated thatPakistan’s efforts towards promoting trans-re-gional connectivity had started showing resultsand its time for European companies to come for-ward and avail themselves of business opportuni-ties created in Pakistan. APP

CORPORATE CORNER

Dollar slips in Asiabefore US Fed meeting

(L – R) - Google Pakistan Country Consultant Badar Khushnood, Andy Warner, Marc Warburton, Jana Levene, Tanya aidrus, Niken Sasmaya ,Anand Tilak, and Aileen Apolo at a moot on Google @ Pakistan organized in partnership with Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT &ITES (P@SHA) and managed by Terrabiz.

HBL - China UnionPay Alliance signed an agreement with UnionPay(UP) to issue UP cards in Pakistan and in global markets where HBLhas presence. Sitting from left to right: Mr. Zakir Mahmood and Mr.Cai Jianbo. Standing from left to right: Faiq Sadiq; Nauman K. Dar;Sultan Allana; Mr. Su Ning and other senior officials at the signing ofthis agreement.

NEW YORK

AGENCIES

The next generation iPhone 5, which Apple Inc.plans to release this week, could not only boostthe tech giant’s bottom line - but could give asignificant boost to the overall U.S. economy.

Sales of the new iPhone could add betweena quarter and a half percentage point to fourthquarter annualized growth in the U.S., accord-ing to J.P. Morgan’s chief economist, MichaelFeroli in a note to clients on Monday. Such animpact would be significant.

“Calculated using the so-called retail controlmethod, sales of iPhone 5 could boost annualizedGDP growth by $3.2 billion, or $12.8 billion atan annual rate,” Feroli wrote. That 0.33 percent-

age-point boost, he added,“would limit the downsiderisk to our Q4 GDP growthprotection, which remains2.0 percent.” Feroli laidout his math. J.P. Mor-gan’s analysts expectApple to sell around 8 mil-lion iPhone 5s in the fourth quarter. They ex-pect the sales price to be about $600. Withabout $200 in discounted import componentcosts, the government can factor in $400 perphone into its measure of gross domestic prod-uct for the fourth quarter. Feroli said the esti-mate of between a quarter to a half point ofannualized GDP “seems fairly large, and forthat reason should be treated skeptically.”

Super iPhone!

Branching outpromisingly

Branchless banking showsimpressive growth in fourthquarter: SBP

KARACHI

STAFF REPORT

Branchless banking (BB) has witnessedan impressive growth during the fourthquarter (April – June 2012) of the lastfiscal year 2011-12 as the number ofmobile banking accounts touched thefigure of 1.45 million, depicting aremarkable growth of 37 percent.According to SBP’s ‘Branchless BankingNewsletter’, posted on its websitetoday, the accounts’ activity level hasalso improved considerably during thequarter under review as the number ofactive accounts increased by 66percent. Over 28 million transactionsworth Rs.115.3 billion were processedduring the April – June quarter. Thenumber and value of transactions havegrown rapidly during April – Junequarter by 12 per cent and 36 per centrespectively. The growth in value oftransactions is almost 3 times morethan the growth in number oftransactions. The overall average sizeof transaction has increased from Rs3,367 to Rs 4,065 during the quarterunder review. The agents’ network hasrisen to 29,525 on 30th June, 2012from 26,792 as on 31st March, 2012registering an increase of 10 percent.The agents now have presence in 90percent of the districts in the country.Bills payments & mobile top-upsremained the dominating activity with50 percent share in total numbers,followed by person to person (over thecounter) fund transfers with share of 36percent. Loan repayments of Rs.464million primarily of microfinanceinstitutions were collected through BBagents during the quarter. According tothe Newsletter, the growth expectationin coming quarters is fairly high as theexisting two BB players are increasingtheir scale of operations and six otherbanks are in pilot phase and are likelyto start their BB operations shortly.Moreover, banks are exploring avenuesto increase the attractiveness of the m-wallets for their customers, and offeringthem new services such as purchasingair-tickets, receiving salaries/ pensions,utilizing ATM through debit cards, andinternet banking.

Cement export increase

18.23 percent in July ISLAMABAD: The cement exportfrom the country during the firstmonth of current financial year hasregistered an increase of 18.23 percentas compared with the same month oflast year. The export of cement postedpositive growth in dollars as about545,125 metric tons cement worth $46.197 million exported during the month of July 2012 against theexport of 740,592 metric tons worth $ 39.074 million in July 2011.According to the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), theexport of cement remained on down track as compared with theprevious month as it was recorded at 612,500 metric tons of $ 52,064million. However, the export of gems and jewellery during the firstmonth of current financial year have registered an increase of 9.96and 143.78 percent respectively as about one metric tons gems of $0.265 million were exported against the export of one million metrictons worth $ 0.241million same month of last year. APP

New iPhone could boost US GDP by up to 0.5 percent, says JP Morgan

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