ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet, expected to meet on Wednesday, would be taking up a heavy agenda, including $200 million rupee-linked offshore bonds, revised markup rates on federal loans for provinces and public sector entities, the Rs739 billion Karachi Transformation Plan (KTP) and the first phase of the rationalisation plan for federal subsidies. Informed sources told Dawn that…
Read More
On one hand, the energy transition is real and here to stay. On the other hand, there are 280 million cars on the road in the U.S. today, 279 million of them running on oil, and the average lifespan of a vehicle is 12 years,” Bob Maguire, managing director of Carlyle Group, October 2020. For the U.S. oil & gas…
Read More
The protest by the labour leaders and human rights activists last month has brought to light, once again, the miserable working and living conditions the workers are braced to at Gadani shipbreaking yards. On the 1st of November every year they mark the tragic accident occurred on that day in 2016, termed as the worst disaster in the history of…
Read More
ISLAMABAD: China has again bailed out Pakistan as it agrees to immediately provide $1.5 billion financing line to repay the $2 billion Saudi Arabia debt, sources told The Express Tribune. Out of $2 billion, Pakistan is now set to return the $1 billion on coming Monday, said the sources in the finance ministry and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).…
Read More
The $226-billion New York State Common Retirement Fund is undertaking a review of all energy companies it is invested in, to assess their readiness for the energy transition and dump those considered riskiest in climate-related investment. As it pledged on Wednesday to transition its portfolio of holdings to one with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, the pension fund—the third-largest…
Read More
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, announced over the weekend that as part of a number of efforts to counteract the effects of climate change, his administration will not approve new coal-fired power generation projects. “We have already scrapped two coal power projects which were supposed to produce 2,600 megawatts of energy. [We have] replaced them with hydroelectricity,” Khan said during his address…
Read More
KARACHI: The atmosphere was electrified in the headquarters of Tesla on the battery day held on September 22 as expectations were high that perhaps their charismatic CEO Elon Musk had found a secret recipe to make cheaper, reliable and safest batteries. So far, the company’s stock has surged 10 times in a span of just one year and is now…
Read More
Long considered to be the ‘food basket’ of South Asia, Punjab is the most agriculturally productive region in the Indo-Gangetic plain. Unlike the spring harvest which brings beautiful colours and festivals such as the Baisakhi Mela, the autumn harvest results in a gloomy ambience, which engulfs the region in hazardous smog. The R-Smog Report of 2018 indicates that air pollution in Punjab originating…
Read More
This comes on the heels of over Rs2.3 trillion circular debt in the power sector as of Sept 30, 2020, and about Rs350bn circular debt in the gas utilities — Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) — up from Rs1.2tr and about Rs120bn in 2018, respectively. The federal cabinet will meet on Tuesday.…
Read More
