Pakistan Today

LONDON: Bitcoin on Wednesday jumped to a record $28,599.99, after the digital currency almost quadrupled in value this year amid heightened interest from bigger investors. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency was last up 2.3% at $28,012. It has surged by nearly half since breaking $20,000 for the first time on Dec. 16. Bitcoin has increasingly seen demand from larger U.S. investors...

ISLAMABAD: A total of 30 renowned Pakistani companies and financial organisations including banks and microfinance institutions have won the prestigious Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB) Awards, 2020 in multiple categories. The GDIB Awards will be presented to the winning companies and institutions for the year 2020 at a grand ceremony scheduled to be held at Karachi on Mar 4,...

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has said that every cash transaction worth Rs2 million or above for the purpose of sale or purchase of property is required to be reported. According to a report by ARY News, FBR has issued guidelines for real estate agents (REAs) under the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) regime brought in to...

LAHORE: Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman Azfar Manzoor on Wednesday initiated the 'Partners in Development' programme, aimed at supporting the local software industry by engaging them in public sector software development work, with a special emphasis on digitally powered public services. In this regard, PITB's Software Engineering Wing arranged a conference with 14 pre-qualified software houses from the private...

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Petroleum Nadeem Babar has said the Sindh government is trying to give political colour to a serious economic issue by presenting distorted and misleading figures about the production and supply of gas in the province. Addressing a news conference along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz after the...

ISLAMABAD: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has referred the Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme (K-IV) worth Rs25.5 billion to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) for approval, according to the Ministry of Planning and Development. The development came during a meeting of the CDWP chaired by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan. Senior officials from the...

LAHORE: Finja, Pakistan’s leading digital lending platform, announced today that it has closed $9 Million of a $10 Million Series A1 financing round. This latest round brings in new investor ICU Ventures, with all previous institutional investors participating again including BeeNext, Vostok Emerging Finance, Quona Capital and Gray MacKenzie Engineering Services (a Descon company). Under the terms of the financing, the...

ISLAMABAD: The Petroleum Division on Tuesday said that all spot cargoes purchased by Pakistan averaged $6.84 delivered ex ship (DES), while the cargoes received under long-term contracts averaged $8.06 DES, showing an increase of 18 per cent in price. The statement came in response to media comments about two spot cargo bids received by Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) for deliveries...

The government is considering giving a three to six months extension in Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s tax amnesty scheme for the construction sector as the scheme is going to expire on Thursday. According to a report by the Express Tribune, deliberations to extend the scheme have been taking place for quite some time as so far over 350 projects having...

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training has sought the federal cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee's (ECC) approval for a supplementary grant of Rs2.268 billion to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in order to avoid an expected cancellation of a credit facility under a World Bank (WB) project. According to sources, the ECC, in its meeting on Wednesday, will...

The federal cabinet on Tuesday approved Muhammad Javed Ghani's appointment as the Federal Board of Revenue's (FBR) permanent chairperson. The approval came during a meeting chaired by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan. It may be noted here that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government had appointed Ghani for a three-month period after removing his predecessor Nausheen Javed Amjad from the post...

KARACHI: VIS Credit Rating Company Limited (VIS) has reaffirmed the corporate governance rating of Allied Bank Limited (ABL) at "CGR-9+". The rating signifies a very high level of corporate governance. The previous rating action was announced on April 2, 2020. The corporate governance ratings are based on evaluation of key governance areas of the rated institution, including regulatory compliance, ownership structure,...

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has set a target of $20.86 billion for textiles and apparel export during the next five years. According to the details, the Commerce Ministry has fixed a $13.6bn export target of textiles and apparel in the ongoing fiscal year, while the government has set a target to export textile products worth $14.7bn in 2021-22, $16.3bn in...

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan will sign a joint appeal to the World Bank (WB) for investing around $4.8 billion in rail link among Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in the near future. The development came during a meeting with the delegation of Uzbekistan that had called on PM Imran here on Tuesday. The Uzbek delegation was led by Uzbek...

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Monday strengthened an executive order barring U.S. investors from buying securities of alleged Chinese military-controlled companies, following disagreement among U.S. agencies about how tough to make the directive. The Treasury Department published guidance clarifying that the executive order, released in November, would apply to investors in exchange-traded funds and index funds as well as subsidiaries...