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Posts tagged with: Inflation
Nov 19, 2008    |       33 comments

Pakistan, Forex and Musharraf

Guest post by A.H.Kalwar of Pakistion Blog

With the current account deficit widening, inflation boiling at over 24% and foreign reserves dieing out at the rate of $1 billion a month. Pakistan’s economic indicators seem to have taken a nose dive. Where did it start and when will it end?

The dollar today stands at over Rs.80 in the open market. Citigroup calls weak rupee ‘a legacy of flawed economic policies’. Economic policies put in place by a generous gift to Pakistan, from Citigroup itself, the MBA-cum-economist Mr.Shaukat Aziz. The other Shaukat, Tareen our latest in the line of Finance ministers boldly throws all the blame on the previous government and it’s “Short-term” aimed policies.

So how the hell did we land up here?, is Zardari secretly stealing all those billions from our foreign reserves? no. I mean I’m sure he’s tempted to, but well that’s not how it works. People frequently ask me how everything went wrong after the PPP-led government took office. The answer to that is, it didn’t go wrong after the new government took office. It went wrong a year before that. When it was obvious to the Chuadries of Gujrat that they’d soon have to vacant government offices they didn’t like it.
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Oct 18, 2008    |       11 comments

[MiniLinks] Bristol-Myers Squibb shutting down Pakistan operations

According to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit report Bristol-Myers Squibb is planning to shut down its subsidiary in Pakistan due to inflationary effects. The news comes just a few months after Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), a subsidiary of Merck & Co, shut up shop in Pakistan. The decision is likely to have been driven by worsening economic conditions, a weak local currency, inflationary pressures, and the consequential rise in production costs. This news amongst other news reports are worrisome as it appears that with the surmounting economic pressures upon Pakistan, the political confidence is also not helping stop this flight of capital, we naturally cannot stop this flight of capital but at least we can persuade our politicians to think beyond their own pockets and more about Pakistan