Author: Finance for Sight

The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications was told on Thursday that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had conducted trials and completed a market assessment for 5G (fifth generation mobile network), a statement from the Senate Secretariat said. The committee meeting, led by Senator Palwasha Muhammad Zai Khan, received briefing on PTA preparedness for the 5G auction. “Officials informed that PTA has conducted trials and completed a market assessment for 5G,” the statement read. “However, the government has constituted an Advisory Committee under the guidance of the finance minister to evaluate the market and spectrum capacity owing to…

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that talks with Russia and Ukraine on a peace deal are “very well advanced” and credited Russia for its actions in the talks, as he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House. Starmer has urged the United States to provide a security “backstop” for any European forces that take part in a potential peacekeeping role in Ukraine at the conclusion of peace talks that Trump has pushed forward since taking office last month. Sitting alongside Starmer in the Oval Office, Trump said he thinks a peace deal reached…

US President Donald Trump will decide on tariff policies for all countries including Mexico and Canada after a study comes out on April 1, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CNBC in an interview on Thursday. Hassett told CNBC that Trump extended the tariffs deadline on Wednesday by saying “we are going to deal with Mexico and Canada presumably the same time we deal with everything else.” Trump tariff policy an attack on EU industry and jobs, Italy’s business lobby says “The schedule is that there’s a study coming out on April 1 and after that the president is…

Rupee’s Performance Against US Dollar Since 15 Jan 2025 The Pakistani rupee recorded marginal decrease, depreciating 0.04% against the US dollar in the inter-bank market on Thursday. At close, the rupee settled at 279.72, a loss of Re0.10 against the greenback. On Wednesday, the rupee had closed at 279.62. Internationally, the US dollar firmed above an 11-week trough on Thursday as vague pledges from President Donald Trump to impose tariffs on Europe and further delays to levies planned for Canada and Mexico stoked uncertainty. The euro steadied after falling further from a one-month high of $1.0529 in the previous session,…

JERUSALEM/TEL AVIV/GAZA: Hamas said on Thursday it was ready to begin talks on the second phase of a ceasefire in Gaza after several hundred Palestinians were released from Israeli jails overnight in return for the bodies of four Israeli hostages. It was the final exchange of the six-week first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza that came into effect on January 19. Israel said on Thursday morning that three of the hostages whose bodies it had received overnight had been murdered in captivity and the fourth had been killed on the day of the October 2023 Hamas raid into Israel…

LUSAKA: Zambia’s currency is expected to remain under pressure in the next week to Thursday, while those of Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda are seen broadly steady, traders said. Nigeria Nigeria’s naira is seen rangebound because of frequent central bank dollar sales to support the currency. The naira was quoted at 1,501 to the dollar on the official market on Thursday, LSEG data showed, compared with a closing quote of 1,508 naira a week earlier. The currency was changing hands at 1,498 naira to the dollar in street trading on Thursday. “I expect the naira to trade between 1,490 naira and…

ISTANBUL: Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Turkiye on Thursday for talks to resolve disputes over the work of their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, a first test of their ability to reset wider relations and work towards ending the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin last year described relations as “below zero” under the administration of Joe Biden, who backed Ukraine with aid and weapons and imposed waves of sanctions on Russia to punish it for its 2022 invasion. But his successor, President Donald Trump, has upended that policy and moved swiftly since taking office last month to open…

WASHINGTON: The United States has dramatically cut the budgets of overseas development and aid programs, with multi-year contracts pared down by 92 percent, or $54 billion, the State Department said Wednesday. On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid for 90 days. The pause aimed to allow the administration to review overseas spending with an eye to gutting programs not aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda. The review in part targeted multi-year foreign assistance contracts awarded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with the…

MUMBAI: Indian government bond yields are expected to trend down in early deals on Thursday, tracking a decline in US Treasury yields, while upcoming debt supply to cap any large fall. The benchmark 10-year yield is likely to move between 6.67% and 6.72%, a trader with a private bank said, compared with its previous close of 6.7065%. “We should see some decline in yields at the start of the session, but the overall appetite for longer duration government securities has taken a hit since the last few days, and hence the downward move should be very limited,” the trader said.…

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday floated the idea of replacing a visa programme for foreign investors with a so-called “gold card” that could be bought for $5 million as a route to American citizenship. Trump told reporters he will replace the “EB-5” immigrant investor visa programme, which allows foreign investors of large sums of money that create or preserve U.S. jobs to become permanent residents, with a so-called “gold card.” The EB-5 programme grants “green cards” to foreigners promising to invest in U.S. businesses. “We are going to be selling a gold card,” Trump said. “We are going…