DNA

Lahore: The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) has observed that the import restrictions under Customs tariff chapter 84, 85 continued to haunt the trade and industry, leading to severe shortage of industry raw material in the country, as the authorities have not been fulfilling their commitments in spite of several reminders and meetings.

In a hurriedly called meeting held on the issue of import restrictions here at PIAF Office, PIAF Chairman Faheem Ur Rehman Saigol warned that if import of industrial raw material, parts and machinery is halted, the industry would stop running gradually, leading to inordinate delay in export orders and damaging the reputation of Pakistan, as some of the sectors have already slashed their productions because they are in a difficult situation in the face of growing currency crisis.

It is to be noted that the State Bank Foreign Exchange Department (FEOD) had made customs tariff chapter 84, 85 import payments conditional on its approval. The commercial banks, after this State Bank’s condition, are not making dollars available to the importers. After the circular issued by the FEOD on July 5 2022 the import of every kind of plant and machinery, capital goods and raw material has stopped. As a result hundreds of consignments are stuck at different ports and almost same number of consignments is on their way.

Moreover, hundreds of consignments remained stuck at the port after government had slapped a ban on the import of luxury items. The importers have to pay now heavy demurrage to the shipping companies, as the government did not fulfill its commitment of waiving off demurrage and detention charges.

PIAF Chairman observed that the business community was expecting that the imports restrictions will be relaxed as soon as the country receives first installment of the IMF loan but it is unfortunate that the situation has not changed so for mainly due to mismanagement of the authorities.

Faheem Siagol said that the industry needs a supply chain to run the whole economy, adding big industries require raw material all the time. The State Bank’s decision severely affected the, pharmaceutical, auto, plastic, mobile phone, engineering and textile industries negatively. The most concerned are those industries whose consignments have reached at the port and are being asked by the suppliers to pay the bill but the State Bank is still creating hurdles. Though importers have the money but are unable to send the amount to them. Those who import goods under Cash Against Document (CAD) are of the view their clients are getting angry with them as they are not able to make payment timely.

ISLAMABAD, SEP 27 /DNA/ – METRO Pakistan, supported by its parent company METRO AG, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) for delivering essential food supplies worth PKR 11 million to flood affectees. The MoU was signed by the Director Corporate Affairs Mr. Pervaiz Akhtar, representing METRO Pakistan and Dr. Adeel Nawaz, Secretary General representing PRCS, in the presence of the Chairman PRCS Sardar Shahid Ahmed Laghari, Mr. Philipp Deichmann, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany and Representative of the German Red Cross Ms. Munazza Fatima.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Pervaiz Akhtar said, “As part of our ‘METRO Care & Share’ initiative, we feel contented to be part of relief operations after the devastating floods. The donation of food essentials will be enough for approximately 15000 people for a month.” The food supplies will be routed through the channels of Pakistan Red Crescent Society to reach the people of the areas where it is most needed. “We have always been at forefront of community welfare during national disasters like floods of 2010 and covid-19 pandemic and will continue to give back to the society through our CSR initiatives” He further added.

While expressing his views, Sardar Shahid Ahmed Laghari thanked METRO for standing with the people of Pakistan in these testing times. “The unprecedented floods have played havoc across the country, causing loss of property and life. We need joint efforts for alleviating the suffering of the vulnerable people”. He further said that this generous donation by METRO is indeed inestimable and will increase our humanitarian capacity to bring ease to the flood victims.

METRO was the first corporate enterprise from the wholesale/retail industry in Pakistan to initiate its relief supply provisions right at the beginning of the floods and in the first instance handed over food, drinks, and other edible items worth PKR 1.2 million for the flood affectees.

ISLAMABAD, SEP 27: PML-N leader Ishaq Dar on Tuesday took oath as a senator during a swearing-in ceremony at the Senate after living five years in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

Dar had been successfully elected to the Senate from Punjab but had been out of the country since October 2017.

The politician, who touched down in Pakistan with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Monday night, will swear in as the federal finance minister tomorrow (September 28) at 10am.

President Arif Alvi will administer oath to Dar at Aiwan-e-Sadar. All arrangements for the oath-taking ceremony will be completed by tomorrow morning.

“I have returned to my country by the grace of God. I will try my best to pull Pakistan out of the [economic] maelstrom it is surrounded with,” Dar said.

He shared that PML-N President Nawaz Sharif and the PM have handed over the responsibility of the finance ministry to him.

“[We] pulled Pakistan out of an economic maelstrom back in 1998 and 2013,” the incoming finance minister said.

Dar has returned to “facilitate” the government in its efforts to resurrect the cash-strapped economy by taking over the key portfolio of the finance ministry.

Miftah Ismail stepped down as the finance minister in line with the party’s decision ahead of Dar’s arrival

The decision was made during a meeting of PML-N leaders in London, including Nawaz Sharif, PM Shehbaz, and others. During the session, several issues related to the country were discussed in detail.

According to a PML-N spokesperson, during the meeting, Miftah handed over his resignation to Nawaz and thanked him for giving him a chance to lead the ministry.

Miftah also said that over the last four months, he performed to the best of his abilities and remained loyal to his party as well as the country.

However, he will continue to remain part of the government. 

Nazir Siyal / DNA

JHAKRO (DADU), Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday urged the nation to work in unison by extending a helping hand to the people suffering form the devastation in the wake of massive floods.

Terming as noble service the helping the people in distress, he stressed the need for rising above politics and the so-called ‘number game’ in order to converge the energies to help the flood-hit people.

Without naming any politician, he pointed out that the post-flood situation in the country demanded to reach out to the flood victims instead of holding jalsas (public gatherings).

In address to the locals during his visit to the tent-city set up in Jhakro village to accommodate the flood victims, he said all the segments of society including the federal government, provincial governments and the people across the country needed to work hand-in-hand with an objective to mitigate the problems of flood-stricken population.

The prime minister arrived in Sindh’s flood-affected area of Jhakro in Dadu district this morning to oversee the relief and rehabilitation efforts.

He expressed satisfaction over the efforts made by the Sindh government, armed forces and the disaster management authorities in providing relief to the flood-affected people.

PM Sharif said the flood affected 33 million people including 1,600 dead and inflicting a huge loss of $30 billion to the national economy.

He mentioned that the government had disbursed Rs 42 billion among the flood-affected people as part of relief and rehabilitation activities.

The prime minister said Pakistan alone could not overcome the challenge of massive floods and called upon the world to amplify its assistance to Pakistan.

He expressed gratitude to the philanthropists for providing relief assistance to Pakistan in the hour of need.

He assured the flood-hit people that the government would leave no stone unturned in extending help to them.

Flanked by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and senior officials of the provincial government, the prime minister visited the tent-city where he was given a detailed briefing on the damage caused by floods.

PM Sharif was apprised that floods affected all areas of district Dadu, leaving 37 persons dead while damaging its infrastructure and crops.

During his interaction with patients at the medical camp, the prime minister inquired about their health and assured them of best possible treatment.He directed the authorities concerned to ensure availability of necessary medicine at the camp to cope with the emerging challenge of malaria, diarrhea and other epidemics and breakouts.The prime minister also visited a makeshift school set up in the premises of the tent-city aimed at preventing loss of education of the students after the floods swept away their schools.He announced on the occasion construction of a smart school for the children of the area equipped with latest technological facilities.PM Sharif mingled with the children at the school and joined them in raising national slogans of Pakistan Zindabad (Long Live Pakistan) and Quaid-i-Azam Zindabad.The prime minister resumed his visit to the flood-affected areas within 24 hours as he returned last night from London, where he had stayed after attending the session of United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Mahnoor Ansar / DNA

Islamabad, SEP 27: Whimsical decisions and speech acts of government elites required better planning and delivery in order to act in unison in the face of globally emerging alliances, said Dr Khuram Iqbal, Head of the International Relations Department at the National Defense University (NDU) Islamabad. He was addressing a roundtable discussion titled, “Emergence of Maritime Alliances: Case Study of QUAD, AUKUS and I2U2”, jointly organized by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) and National Institute of Maritime Affairs (NIMA), here on Tuesday.

Discussing the role of emerging alliances and the resultant shift in global power dynamics, Dr Khuram added that it was high time to analyse if QUAD actually bore the potential of evolving into a full-fledged military alliance. At present, he said that QUAD was merely a multilateral dialogue platform and was bound to function as such for another few years. He added that lack of formal institutionalization and socialization in addition to an increased level of economic interdependence among the member countries were precursors to the fact that QUAD would remain a dialogue platform. While addressing the underlying reasons behind the creation of these alliances, Dr Iqbal said that China had tried its best to shun down its image as a revisionist power. It was unfortunate that this Chinese rhetoric was not reciprocated by the West and that was what fed continued tensions between China and the West. It appeared as if the West was bent on creating an adversary for itself. If there was an anti-China force to emerge, it would be AUKUS, not QUAD as AUKUS had a particular Anglo-Saxon niche to it, he added.

Mr Syed Muhammad Ali, International Policy Expert said that AUKUS had exposed the true expressions of the Anglo-Saxon world, feeding on the supremacy of the existing order whilst posing a challenge to the emergence of competing powers. One of the main features of AUKUS, he said was to ensure defense industrial integration. He added that the US was determined to develop a favourite in the Asia Pacific and also that the emerging alliance system to contain China had a certain hierarchy. The nature of alliance that the US was building was fundamentally different from what China could work with. China could not operationalise an alliance of similar nature, he added. He expressed hopes for Pakistan to work along the emerging alliance systems as India had been hedging over the opportunities, making the most of the global power transition.

Dr Nazir Hussain, Dean Social Sciences, University of Wah, said that the American foreign policy was a collection of clearly chalked out policies. The traditional geo-political framework was now evolving into a more geo-oceanic framework, putting the traditional international relations under tremendous stress. I2U2, also referred to as the Gulf NATO or Arab NATO in this regard, was mainly focused on securing the maritime interests of the partner countries. The US realized it could never match the Chinese BRI. It was through these alliances that the US aimed to deal with the rise of two countries, i.e., China and Iran. I2U2 among others, bore serious potential to evolve into a full-fledged alliance. He said it was imperative to accord Iran and Saudi Arabia the respective significance of Pakistan’s geo-political partner geo-economic partner.

Some experts at the roundtable also discussed the apprehensions about QUAD and AUKUS. While AUKUS was seemingly more organised, it was important to reassess if it was worthwhile waiting for these alliances to optimally materialise or was going into a reactive mode the best course in present times.  It was important to realise that while these alliances did come with certain challenges, the opportunities that they carried could not be ignored. Countries like India, Iran, and the UAE were actually looking out for themselves and it was high time that Pakistan did so too.

Mr Taimur Fahad Khan, Research Associate at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) said that while calls for proactive engagement in maritime affairs did seem like a reasonable option amidst the emergence of new alliances, it was vital to first devise Pakistan’s true maritime priorities.