President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday said policy to discourage imports should be reconsidered because of losses associated with it.The policy of suppressing imports has damaged the industrial sector, left a million jobless and triggered inflation to nine-year high resulting in unrest, he said.

As a part of its regular teacher training and development programme, Oxford University Press (OUP) organized workshops for teachers on ‘Computational Thinking’ in Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi. The sessions were designed for teachers using the Oxford International Primary Computing series published by OUP.

“After Ghalib no one could adopt his versatility” said Shamim Hanfi in a session on Ghalib at Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi. The session was part of the ongoing 12th international Urdu Conference at Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi on 150th death anniversary of famous Urdu Poet of 18th century Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib.

According to Karachi Port Trust, the total cargo handled at port during the last 24 hours closed at 97,245 Metric Tons. The breakup shows that the port has handled 28,704 Metric Tons of export cargo and 68,541 Metric Tons of import cargo during the said period.

One of the leaders in the spice industry, Shan Foods has joined hands with Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC (LPG)) to work towards a cleaner, greener Pakistan. With the help of SSGC (LPG), Shan Foods has successfully shifted its Lahore plant to a cleaner fuel.

The KSE-100 index staged rally for the week, climbing 3.7% WoW, a rise of 1,444 points, and managed to breach the psychological barrier of 40k index points ending at 40,732 index points. This rally was mainly supported by: (i) upgrade in outlook for Pakistan from negative to stable by Moody’s investor services, (ii) a USD431mn WoW increase in Forex reserves held by SBP, and (iii) OPEC agreeing on greater than expected production cuts.

Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, is now able to provide people reliable, secure and fast connectivity everywhere they go. This follows a pilot with Ellamp Spa, an Italian designer and manufacturer of interior systems and components for public and private transport by road and rail, to provide Trulifi systems to buses.

Engro Fertilizers signed an agreement with BASF to develop and distribute the world-renowned Nunhems brand of vegetable seeds in Pakistan.

The seed to harvest solutions offered by Engro Fertilizers, coupled with Nunhems high quality vegetable seeds, will help Pakistani farmers improve their crop yields and income levels.

The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at US$15,993.2 million on 29-November-2019.The break-up of the foreign reserves position is as under:-

1. Foreign reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan : US$  9,112.9 million
2. Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks         : US$  6,880.3 million
3. Total liquid foreign reserves                                            : US$ 15,993.2 million    

During the week ending 29-November-2019, SBP’s reserves increased by US$431 million to US$9,112.9 million.