Kathay Kalame

Too often one hears of a gloomy prognosis predicting doom for the Pakistani economy. Lets see what kind of story the actual numbers tell in comparison to more advanced economies of the world.

In March 2009, Pakistan’s trade deficit narrowed by almost 50%, as imports declined faster than exports. Good news for the currency one would think.

Worker remittances were a record high in March 2009 at US$743 million an increase of 23% over last year. Cheerful news that.

While Japan’s exports plummeted by 50%, China’s by 26% and India’s by 33%, Pakistan’s exports were down by 25%. Even though, the competitive peer group is formidable, Pakistan is the best performer.

On the corporate profitability front, during the worst global down turn in a century, Pakistan’s corporate profitability of listed companies declined by a mere 3% in aggregate in the 3rd quarter of 2009.

Owais Mughal

To prepare for upcoming Twenty-20 World Cup, Pakistan Cricket Team’s training session is going on in Bhurban hill resort. Pakistan’s largest Urdu Daily, Jang has this interesting take on the event.

Adil Najam and Owais Mughal

First, a word of thanks to our readers for responding to our call for supporting the nearly one million Pakistanis who have been displaced by the fighting in Swat and adjoining regions. Knowing that many of our readers are already contributing very significantly in many different ways through many sources, we had initially set a target of raising $1000. We reached that target in just 16 hours. We matched that contribution with another $1000 from our advertising revenue (which means that too comes from ATP readers) and have sent $2000 directly to Edhi Foundation in Pakistan for their relief efforts. The contributions have come from Pakistanis as well as non-Pakistanis and in all sizes (ranging from $5 to $300). We are deeply appreciative of all who have contributed, and also to all who have encouraged the efforts with their words and good wishes.

On your advice, we have kept the channel open and as of this writing our readers have now contributed $2000 already (i.e., $1000 addition to the original $1000; the widget may show less since some credit card payments have to wait to be cleared before they show up). Since the need is great and likely to be longer-term, we are going to keep the widget live at least this week and will be raising the ‘target’ incrementally. On our part, we at ATP are committed to sending in more of our Ad revenue to this cause and we do hope that readers will also keep on giving to this cause, through whatever means that are most appropriate for them.