Search Results for: Pakistan

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut
HUNTING with falcons has been part of Arab culture for thousands of years, but with wild falcons declining because of trapping and Middle Eastern hunters also shooting falcons for sport, what do Arabs think about imposing tougher restrictions?…

BY ANDREW SALMON, in Seoul
LAST October, South Korea was admitted as an observer to the world’s premier group of money laundering fighters – the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and given the nation’s recent moves to strengthen its anti-money laundering regime its path to full membership in approximately two years appears smooth.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF has helped uncover three rules-of-origin frauds costing EU coffers millions of Euros. In one case, an OLAF-German police inquiry has uncovered the loss of Euro 50 million in duties by the illicit rerouting of Chinese energy-saving lamps via Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Tunisia to evade 66.1% anti-dumping duties on China-made lamps; Euro 7 million of avoided taxation has been recovered.…

SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH, in Lahore

PAKISTAN’S paint sector – one of its largest industries – has shown an impressive growth over the last few years, mainly because of boost in housing and construction activities.

Unfortunately, being one of the more unorganised sectors in the country, with many small manufacturers, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of paint producing units, production and sales data, but figures available from government agencies reveal the industry achieved 25-30 % growth in last five years, with an impressive spurt of 15-20% growth in the financial year ended June 2006, which could be sustained in the medium-term if the housing sector continues growing at its current pace.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

"REFINERY Process Outsourcing" or simply RPO is an exciting buzzword in the otherwise hard-pressed Indian petroleum industry, as the term represents newly found and highly profitable venture of operating refineries to fulfil surging international demand.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

The Iranian tobacco market has been partly opened up to international players in the past five years and growth is expected to rise strongly, but development of the sector is beset by extraordinarily high rates of smuggling and governmental regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank will pump US$52 million into Pakistan’s Dewan Petroleum Ltd, boosting its local upstream oil and gas exploration, development and production. Dewan has interests in the Safed Koh block, the Punjab, including the Salsabil gas/condensate field.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi, India

*The Gas-reserves and Gas-production figures in the first table are from BP Statistical Review. Only in case of India’s daily gas production we have chosen a more widely quoted figure from Government of India, which is 15% more than BP’s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE REIMPOSITION of quota limits last year on some Chinese textile products has driven official overseas sales down, according to European Commission figures. During the first quarter of 2006, China saw an overall decrease in exports to the EU of minus 12% in volume, although unit prices increased by 9%.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

A US$25 million financing package has been signed by the International Finance Corporation, of the World Bank, with Canada-based Rally Energy, supporting upstream oil and gas projects in Egypt and Pakistan. In Egypt, Rally is helping develop the Ras Issaran heavy oil concession, the Gulf of Suez; in Pakistan, the Safed Koh gas block, in the Punjab.…