Tuesday, 7 August, 2012

No moremangoes for you!Pakistanis to halt mango exports to US

KARACHI

AFP

Pakistanis are abandoning much-publicised mango exports to theUnited states after just a year be-cause american requirementsmade profit margins too narrow,members of the industry said Mon-day. in 2011, Pakistani growers ex-ported five tons of the country’ssignature fruit to the United statesand had hoped for a higher yieldthis year. But if exports grind to ahalt, it could prove embarrassingfor efforts dubbed “mango diplomacy” in 2010 when Ussecretary of state Hillary Clinton offered to help Pakistanexport the fruit in a bid to ease anti-americanism. The Usembassy was unavailable for comment, but announced inJanuary that Us support had helped select mango growersincrease regional exports by more than 60 percent andrevenue by more than $4 million over the past year. Pak-istani officials confirmed the assistance, but said sendingmangoes to the United states was not cost effective. “Pak-istan cannot export mangoes to the United states this sea-son because of certain restrictions, which the growers feelmakes the business unprofitable,” Kashif niazi, an officialat the commerce ministry, told aFP. an official at theTrade development authority of Pakistan, which regulatesexports, said producers had been annoyed by compulsoryUs irradiation in Chicago that ate into their profits. al-though Pakistan has its own irradiation plant, it has notbeen approved by the United states.

July to see car sales set inrEd zoNE

KARACHI

STAFF rEPorT

The market observers, citingdiscussions with industryexperts, expect soft sales inlocal automobile industryduring the month of July. Thelower numbers are primarily onaccount of completion of Punjabtaxi scheme, prompt buying bydealers before price hike in June causing inventory pileup in the market and reduced price differential betweenlocal and imported CBUs. according to analysts atTopline Research, local industry sales may decline by 30to 40% MoM during July compared to 19k in June 2012with PsMC receiving the major hit. Companies wisebreak up reveals that Pak suzuki sale is expected todecline by 45-50 % in July from 11k units sold in theprevious month to 5700-6200 units likely in July 2012This is in line with our expectations where we expect2H2012 sales to decline by 31% as compared to 62k unitsin 1H2012. This is on account of no taxi scheme in the2H2012 and short term effect of ban on CnG. On theother hand, the indus motor sales are expected to decline25-30 % to 3.9k to 4.1k units in July as compared to 5.5kin June 2012.

Need wheat? Or maybe some textile?Pakistan offers exports to Iran

ISLAMABAD

APP

senate Chairman syed nayyer HussainBokhari on sunday met with iranianForeign Minister ali akbar salehi inTehran and discussed matters related toeconomic and trade relations between thetwo Muslim countries. Emphasizing thesignificance of economic relations betweenthe two countries, the senate Chairman,who is visiting iran, said Pakistan couldoffer many items to iran, including wheatand textile. He said the potential of boththe countries should be fully exploited tothe benefit of their people, said a messagereceived here from Tehran. Referring tothe iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project,Bokhari said that iran’s gas could helpPakistan in overcoming the energy crisisin Pakistan. describing Pakistan and iranas two major countries in the region,Bokhari said that the cooperation betweenthe two countries could establish peaceand stability in the region. Highlightingthe significance of parliamentarycooperation between iran and Pakistan,he said that there should be moreexchange of parliamentary delegations.The iranian Foreign Minister referred tocultural and religious commonalitiesbetween both the countries and said thatthere was no limit to the expansion ofeconomic relations between iran andPakistan. He said that Pakistan and iranenjoyed the best of political relations atthis item as their Presidents had fullunderstanding of major international and

regional issues.The iranianForeign Minister

expressed thehope that thevisit of thesenate

ChairmanBokhari would

help furtherreinforce Pakistan-

iran relations in all fields.

HONG KONG

AGENCIES

asian markets rebounded strongly Monday on better-than-expected Us jobs data while traders took a morepositive view of the European Central Bank’s positionon the eurozone debt crisis.

The single currency hit its highest level against thedollar in a month as concerns over the eurozone and theUs eased, while hopes grew that Greece will meet its ob-ligations to qualify for another tranche of rescue cash.Tokyo rose 1.72 percent by the break, Hong Kong jumped2.03 percent, sydney was 1.21 percent higher and seoulclimbed 2.05 percent. shanghai added 0.28 percent asdealers tentatively awaited the release of key economic dataon the world’s number two economy later in the week. inthe United states the Labor department said Friday that theeconomy added 163,000 jobs in July — the strongest gainsince February and beating forecasts for a gain of 100,000.

despite a 0.1 percentage point rise in the unem-ployment rate to 8.3 percent the figures were welcomedby investors who took the report as a sign of resilience

in the world’s number one economy. The result sentWall street surging. The dow jumped 1.69 percent, thenasdaq climbed 2.00 percent and the s&P 500 rose1.90 percent. The figures were welcome news for themarkets, which had been sent tumbling on Thursdayafter the ECB failed to announce any concrete plans tosupport the euro, despite comment from its head Mariodraghi that it would do whatever was needed.

However, the initial disappointment was reversedin Europe and on Wall street after bank officials saidFriday it could intervene and buy the bonds of strug-gling eurozone countries without unanimous approval.

Those comments raised hopes that a bond buyingprogramme to help struggling countries such as spainand italy is still possible. The ECB “seems to be cook-ing up something internally”, Jung seung-jae, analystat Mirae asset securities in south Korea, told dowJones newswires. “action may come earlier than ex-pected.” On currency markets the euro surged in earlytrade to a one-month high of $1.2442 as traders be-came more confident in higher-risk, higher-yieldingassets. The currency later eased and sat at $1.2402,

still up from $1.2381 in late trade in new York Friday.The euro bought 97.20 yen compared with 97.30

yen in new York, although well up from the 95.18 yenin Tokyo on Friday. The dollar bought 78.40 yen, from78.59 yen. also providing some support to marketswere comments from Greece’s international creditorssunday that the country was committed to hammeringout further spending cuts to secure a new batch of aid.

TOKYO

AGENCIES

asian shares rallied to a three-month high and theeuro touched a one-month high against the dollaron Monday, as a stronger-than-expected U.s. jobsdata and emerging optimism for European actionon the debt crisis bolstered risk appetite.

But caution is likely to remain until concretemeasures are taken, which may be weeks away, andinvestors in the meantime will be looking to dataout of China starting Thursday – from trade tobank loans and investment — to give the globaleconomic outlook a further lift.

China’s central bank on sunday pledged to in-tensify monetary policy fine-tuning and improvecredit policy to bolster the world’s second largesteconomy. With the euro zone debt crisis cripplingglobal economic activity, southeast asia’s largest

economy, indonesia, will likely report its secondquarter gross domestic product grew 6.1 percent onMonday, indicating its once-sizzling economy isstarting to cool and show gaps in its resilienceagainst a global slowdown.

MsCi’s broadest index of asia-Pacific sharesoutside Japan rose 1.6 percent to its highest inthree months, with Hong Kong shares rallying 2percent to be among the region’s top performers.Japan’s nikkei stock average jumped 1.7 percent.

“Time has come to shift funds to risk assets,as markets have very limited room for furtherdownside from here,” said Tetsu Emori, aTokyo-based commodities fund manager at ast-max investments.

“investors may be questioning why they rushedto sell when the ECB and the Fed both have beensaying they will take action when necessary. Theynever said they won’t do anything.”

Asian markets bounce on US jobs figures, ECB hopes

NEW DELHI

AFP

India’s new pro-market finance ministeron Monday pledged to takes steps to re-store foreign investors’ faith in asia’sthird-largest economy and “restart thegrowth engine”.

P. Chidambaram, in his first policy statementsince taking over last week, said india’s stutteringeconomy faced a string of challenges from stub-born inflation to high interest rates and a spi-ralling fiscal deficit. But “with sound policies,good governance and effective implementation,we will be able to overcome these challenges,”said Chidambaram, now in his third stint as fi-nance minister.

“The key to restart the growth engine is to at-tract more investment — both from domestic in-vestors and foreign investors,” he said. india’sonce-booming economy grew just 5.3 percent be-tween January and March — its slowest annualquarterly expansion in nine years.

He said there was still “enormous goodwill”globally for india, despite anger over recent gov-ernment moves seen as hostile to foreign in-vestors, and said most people were keeping “faithwith the india growth story”.

His predecessor, Pranab Mukherjee, whonow occupies the ceremonial role of president,annoyed foreign investors in his March budget

with sweeping anti-tax evasion rules — some ofthem retroactive.

Chidambaram promised to review the taxmeasures to find “fair” solutions, adding thatindia wanted a “non-adversarial” tax regime.

He said the government would aim to raisethe level of investment to 38 percent of GdP,from 32 percent last year. He added it was key toremove any “distrust” in investors’ minds sinceinvestment “is an act of faith”.

attracting foreign investment is required toupgrade india’s dilapidated airports, roads, portsand other infrastructure in order to ease bottle-necks and spur growth.

Chidambaram took over the portfolio on thesame day as india suffered a massive power out-age that highlighted its creaking infrastructure.

The Congress-led government, Chidambaramsaid, would take steps to attract investments inmutual funds and insurance and bring india’s fis-cal consolidation process back on track.

He also said that with the threat of india’sthird drought in a decade looming, the left-lean-ing government must provide relief to parchedfarm areas and that the “fiscal correction” wouldhave to be fairly shared.

He also called for the cooperation of parlia-ment, which has been paralysed over long-stalledeconomic reforms to open up india’s still inward-looking economy.

Chidambaram, who has been keen on reform-ing the heavily regulated and state-controlledeconomy — a legacy of socialist thinking in post-independence india —- will have the job of boost-ing the economy ahead of the 2014 elections.

He indicated he wanted lower interest ratesto spur investment and consumption. The centralbank has said it wants inflation to come downfrom elevated levels of over seven percent beforecutting borrowing costs.

“sometimes it is necessary to take carefullycalibrated risks,” said Chidambaram, whose pe-riods as finance minister included the time from2004 to 2008 when india’s growth was near dou-ble-digits.

India’s new finance minister vows to ‘restart growth’

Shares rally,euro up on USjobs, hopes forEurope action

New Delhi presses the restartbutton… system crashes

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02

tuesday, 7 august, 2012

Major Gainers

CompANy opEN HigH LoW CLoSE CHANgE TUrNovErRafhan MaizeXD 3624.00 3700.00 3700.00 3700.00 76.00 20Atlas Battery Ltd. 239.46 251.40 239.50 249.86 10.40 112,700Exide (PAK) XD 204.70 214.93 214.93 214.93 10.23 12,700Island Textile 203.62 213.80 199.90 213.80 10.18 700Colgate Palmolive 1328.99 1350.00 1262.55 1337.50 8.51 200

Major LosersUniLever Pak 8444.80 8455.00 8400.00 8400.00 -44.80 180Siemens Pakistan 811.00 800.00 796.00 796.00 -15.00 250Mithchells Fruit 364.95 350.15 350.15 350.15 -14.80 100Wyeth Pak Limited 988.00 975.00 940.00 975.00 -13.00 100ZIL Limited 98.00 96.00 93.10 93.24 -4.76 900

Volume Leaders

Aisha Steel Mills 10.00 12.00 10.35 11.02 1.02 5,233,000Jah.Sidd. Co. 15.13 15.24 14.61 14.71 -0.42 3,214,500Azgard Nine 6.12 6.24 5.70 5.82 -0.30 2,972,000Fauji Fertilizer 116.02 116.44 113.35 113.83 -2.19 2,862,500Quice Food 10.24 11.24 10.50 11.24 1.00 2,419,500

Interbank RatesUs dollar 94.2624UK Pound 146.7383Japanese Yen 1.2020Euro 116.5649

Dollar EastBUy SELL

US Dollar 94.00 94.80Euro 115.99 117.05Great Britain Pound 145.76 147.05Japanese Yen 1.1906 1.2010Canadian Dollar 93.20 94.53Hong Kong Dollar 11.96 12.13UAE Dirham 25.53 25.73Saudi Riyal 25.03 25.18

Australian Dollar 98.46 100.78

Business

TOKYO

AGENCIES

THE euro was mixed against other cur-rencies in asian trade on Monday asrisk appetite grew on positive Us jobsdata. The euro fetched $1.2389 and97.23 in Tokyo morning trade, against

$1.2381 and 97.30 yen in new York late Friday.The dollar bought 78.50 yen against 78.59

yen. in early trade Monday, the euro brieflyreached $1.2442, its highest level in a month,boosted by a jump in risk sentiment from bet-ter-than-expected Us jobs data Friday, dealerssaid. The department of Labor said the world’sbiggest economy created 163,000 jobs in July,well above the market forecast of 100,000 jobs,sending Wall street surging.

Mansoor Mohi-uddin, UBs head of forexstrategy, said the euro could climb past the$1.25 level, but the rise would be unsustainablegiven the likelihood of fresh policy action by

the European Central Bank (ECB).“We maintain our longer term

$1.1500 target as ECB balancesheet expansion will cyclicallyweaken the currency again —even if structural concernsabout the eurozone breakingup are reduced,” Mohi-uddin said.

Credit suisse analystHiromichi shirakawasaid the upbeat Us datamade it less clear thatthe Us Federal Re-serve would usher infurther monetaryeasing at a policymeeting on september 13.

“We see a rising possibility thatthe Federal Reserve holds off its deci-sion on additional action until december orearly next year,” he said in a note.

UBL and SLiC formally launch jointinsurance productKARACHI: United Bank Limited (UBL) recently became thefirst bank in Pakistan to be signed up by State Life Insur-ance Corporation (SLIC) to sell their insurance productsunder Bancassurance. SLIC is the leading insurance com-pany of Pakistan with the highest market share and thelargest network of outlets. GBA Services were signed on toprovide the technical support including state of the art on-line POS System for instant coverage to the customer. Afterthe recent, signing ceremony, the product was formallylaunched on 2nd August, 2012 at the UBL SignatureLounge, Clifton, Karachi. PrESS rELEASE

Teradata revenue increases 18percent in constant currencyKARACHI: Teradata Corporation (NYSE: TDC), reportedrevenue of USD 665 million for the quarter ended June 30,2012, an increase of 14 percent from USD 581 million inthe second quarter of 2011. Currency translation reducedthe second quarter revenue comparison by 4 percentagepoints. PrESS rELEASE

Wateen Telecom completesdeployment of Wi-Fi Hotspots LAHORE: Wateen Telecom, Pakistan’s leading convergedcommunication service provider has completed deploymentof Wi-Fi Hotspots at Government of Punjab educational insti-tutions. These hotspots will enable students at governmentinstitutions across Punjab to gain vital access to the numer-ous educational resources on the internet. PrESS rELEASE

Chairman NAdrA urges politicalparties to mobilise citizens for CNiCISLAMABAD: NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik has written let-ters to leaders of all political parties requesting their assis-tance in mobilizing Pakistani citizens to obtain theircomputerized national identity cards (CNlCs), which is alsoa pre-requisite for registration as voters; this was stated instatement issued here today. PrESS rELEASE

CORPORATE CORNER

MCB Bank Limited’s Mr. Muhtashim Ashai is presenting a cheque of rs 5 million

to Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation’s (SIUT) dr. zafar Hussain Emirates Airline had the pleasure of hosting an Arabic themed lftar dinner in honour of the media representatives in Karachi at

these moments Emirates Airline Vice President Pakistan Mr. Khalid Bardan with media guests.

KARACHI

NEWdESK

standard Chartered arranged a one year Usd 35million islamic structured Trade Finance facil-ity for Pakistan international airlines (Pia). TheBank was the sole arranger and structuringBank for this transaction.

The facility is structured as an offshoretransaction under an islamic mode which usesan innovative services ijara concept based onpurchase and distribution of airline seats.

The Bank’s deep understanding of offshoremarkets, product knowledge, combined withstrong liquidity and a good capital base, made ita perfect choice for leading the transaction. TheUsd facility will allow Pia to benefit from lowinterest rates in the international markets. Thefacility will be utilised by the airline for general

corporate purposes.Hogan Lovells and Haidermota & Co acted

as legal counsel to standard Chartered whilePia was represented by Mandviwalla & Zafar.

The signing of the facility agreements re-cently took place in dubai where Pia was rep-resented by Chief Financial Officer Mr. nayyarHayat, and Funds Management General Man-ager Mr. shahid Munir.

Commenting on the transaction, standardChartered Pakistan Chief Executive Mohsinnathani said, “standard Chartered, consistentwith our brand promise of being ‘Here for good’,is committed to the Pakistan market. We areglad to have successfully arranged this uniquefacility for Pia and are pleased to be deepeningour relationship further. By providing this fi-nancing solution we aim to help them meet theirlong term objectives.

SINGAPORE

AGENCIES

Oil prices were down in asia Monday withtraders taking profits from a rally last week asthey awaited the release of Chinese trade datalater in the week, analysts said.

new York’s main contract, West Texas in-termediate (WTi) light sweet crude for deliveryin september, fell 12 cents to $91.28 a barreland Brent north sea crude for september deliv-ery shed 34 cents to $108.60.

Crude prices were weaker “after rallying ona stronger-than-expected Us jobs report, whilethe market awaited Chinese trade data due laterthis week for trading cues,” Phillip Futures saidin a report. a crude rally on Friday saw priceson the WTi jumping more than four dollars to

pass $91 a barrel, while Brent rose more thanthree dollars to within striking distance of $109.

The ebullient show was largely due to offi-cial data released Friday showing the economyof the Us — the world’s largest oil consumer —creating 163,000 jobs in July, beating forecastsfor a gain of 100,000, analysts said.

On traders’ watchlist for this week is the re-lease of a slew of economic data from China whichwill provide an update on the economic health ofthe world’s largest energy consumer and its cor-responding energy demand. China’s June tradedata released last month showed demand for im-ports falling more sharply than expected, leadingto a widening of the trade surplus and stokingconcerns about an economic slowdown.

China is set to release its July trade figuresthis Friday.

Bulls, bears slug itout in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD

APP

The islamabad stock Exchange witnessed abullish trend on Monday as the isE-10 indexwas up by 8.26 points to close at 2929.36. atotal of 21,000 shares were traded, whichwere down by 5,200 shares as compared toprevious day’s trading of 26,200 shares. Outof 119 companies, share prices of 46companies recorded increase and those of73 registered decrease. no companyremained stable. The share price of UnileverPakistan increased by Rs. 144.80, while thatof Engro Corporation decreased by Rs. 3.30.Byco Petroleum, Lotte Pakistan PTa andBank of Punjab remained the top tradingcompanies with 10,000, 10,000 and 5,000shares respectively.

SBP says relaxMore relaxations for exportersunder export Finance Scheme

KARACHI

STAFF rEPorT

The state Bank of Pakistan (sBP) hasallowed more relaxations to exporters underPart-ii of the Export Finance scheme (EFs),the central bank said Monday. “To furtherfacilitate exporters under EFs Part-ii, theexport proceeds realised up to august 31,2012 shall be considered for entitlement oflimit in the EE-1 statement for the year2012-13,” said an sBP circular issued by theregulator to the banks. The relaxation, itsaid, was available only to the exportershaving shortfall in required performanceunder EFs Part-ii for the monitoring year2011-12. Further, limits sanctioned by banksunder Part-ii of the scheme for FY 2011-12to the exporters intending to avail the abovefacility shall continue up to October 31,2012, to enable them to avail financingfacilities under the scheme pendingsubmission of EE-1 statements for FY 2012-13, the circular said. adding that to avail thisrelaxation such exporters should informRefinance Unit of the respective sBP-BsCOffice up to august 30, 2012 through theirbanks. The exporters foreseeing difficulty inmeeting required exports targets in FY2012-13, should avail realistic limits frombanks in line with their potential to performin order to avoid short performance nextyear, it added.

aslam gets PearlCapital helmKARACHI: asim aslam Khan has beenappointed new CEO of Pearl CapitalManagement in place of saad Bin naseer,who resigned from the post recently. Khanis a highly creative consumer banker with37 years of experience with strong businessbackground, including 17 years in banking,versatile and seasoned professional whoadapts well to changing environments. Withstrong leadership qualities, he excels inmediating among multiple divisions of largeorganizations and maintains productiverelationships with staff, peers, andmanagement. STAFF rEPorT

EUro mixEd in Asian trade

Structuring in flight arranges $35m Islamic StructuredTrade Finance facility for PakistanInternational Airlines (PIA)

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