Category: Business News

Foreign Office says the Government of Pakistan is actively engaged with the Kenyan authorities at multiple levels for speedy repatriation of the mortal remains of Arshad Sharif.

 

In a statement, it said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has spoken to President of Kenya, William Ruto to request early completion of formalities and repatriation of the mortal remains.

 

The Kenyan President conveyed deepest condolences on the tragic incident, and assured complete investigations and repatriation of the body at the earliest.

 

The statement said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Pakistan High Commission in Nairobi remain in constant contact to facilitate and expedite the process.

 

It said that Pakistan has also formally requested the Kenyan government to hold an investigation into the incident.

 

The acting foreign secretary Raza Bashir Tarar has also met the Kenyan High Commissioner in Islamabad to impress upon the importance of the matter and urgent repatriation of the mortal remains.

 

He also briefed the members of the National Assembly Foreign Relations Committee on the developments.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has elected new Central Committee and new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

 

The week-long National Congress concluded in Beijing which was presided over by President Xi Jinping on Saturday.

 

The forum also passed a resolution on the work report of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

 

The new CPC leadership will be elected at the first plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee tomorrow.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan

Pakistan and India are set to face each other tomorrow at Melbourne Cricket Ground as they begin their T20 World Cup campaigns.

While Pakistan possesses a lethal pace attack featuring Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah as their main bowlers, the batting still might be the weak point. With Australian conditions greatly favoring the bowlers, let’s have a look at how Pakistan can tackle the Indian bowling attack.

Pakistan’s batting unit is built around the formidable opening pair of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. Having two best-ranked T20I batters in the world, Pakistan still at times struggle to dominate with the bat, and even when India’s pace attack might not be as star-studded on paper as Pakistan’s pack, Indian bowlers know fully well how to execute the conditions to their advantage. Hence, batting is what Pakistan needs to plan for, carefully and tactically.

MCG’s Death Over Blues

Pakistan, as a batting side, believe in saving wickets in the first half of the game and look to accelerate at the backend of the innings. However, MCG’s nature seems the other way around. The venue is statistically tougher than average for the batters in the death overs. Thus, Pakistan’s batting unit will need to change its approach of just hitting at the death.

 

Building the Innings

Although the T20 format tilts towards the batters mostly, hitting boundaries in Australia is not a walk through the park. According to the stats, the percentage of boundaries hit by batters in Australia is fairly less as compared to other countries. Simultaneously, most runs come from rotating the strike.

 

Assessing the situation, Pakistan can use the conditions well if they do not try to hit it in the air every single time and rather try to maximize their score by finding gaps to get singles and doubles. Another advantage for Pakistan can be their opening duo as Babar Azam likes hitting it for fours through the gaps and Mohammad Rizwan can reply to the bouncers with his pull shots.

In short, Pakistan should attack the Indian bowlers in the powerplay while fielders are inside the circle and then try to carry the rhythm through the middle overs so that they have a solid base before going reckless in the death overs.

 

Beating Bouncers

Talking about bouncers, Pakistan should be extremely careful against the short balls. Records show that Pakistani batters have been clueless while facing short balls and India seems to be fully aware of this fact. The bouncy pitches of Australia offer a great deal of support for bowlers to ball lethal bouncers and Pakistan struggle against the short length. Hence, how the individuals plan to tackle the short ball will make a huge difference for Pakistan’s overall batting.

 

Making Most Out of Match-ups

Moreover, promoting Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz up the order as per match-ups can be a game-changing move for Pakistan because it will help put the Indian bowlers under pressure and overall add to the depth of the batting line-up.

 

The flexible order has worked wonders for Pakistan recently and it has also helped the power hitters in unlocking their potential. With Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz utilizing their low-value wickets to take on the spinners in the middle overs, Iftikhar Ahmad and Asif Ali get to face the pacers which provides the tactical stability to the batting outfit of Pakistan.

Conclusion

While Pakistan relies on its pace attack to limit the Indian batters, they must plan perfectly to stop the Indian bowlers from doing the same. Australia has always been a tough venue for batters, hence Pakistan will have to be a very fine and balanced batting unit to prevent a horrible collapse on the bouncy track of MCG. In this regard, the main batters, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will have to build a seamless foundation for the middle order to stand on. The final word for Pakistani batters to remember and repeat is; to keep the scoreboard ticking.

 

Source: Pro Pakistan

President Dr Arif Alvi has called for fully utilizing the trade potential between Pakistan and France.

 

He was talking to Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to France Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, who called on him in Islamabad on Friday.

 

He called for holding regular meetings of all bilateral mechanisms and stressed on exploring more opportunities for commercial collaboration, especially in the fields of IT, agriculture, fashion designing, start-ups, agriculture and livestock.

 

The President also highlighted the scope for accelerating the existing cooperation between the two countries in the fields of pharmaceuticals, electronic machinery parts, dairy products, organic chemicals, paper and articles of iron and steel.

 

The President asked the Ambassador-designate to make efforts to increase French scholarships for Pakistani students to study in French universities.

 

He also asked the Ambassador-designate to sensitize the French leadership on increasing trend of marginalizing the minorities in India and Islamophobia, and urgency to resolve the Kashmir dispute as per UN Security Council resolutions.

 

Meanwhile, President Dr Arif Alvi has underscored the need to further improve existing bilateral relations between Pakistan and Japan particularly for economic, business and human resource development initiatives.

 

He was talking to Pakistan’s Ambassador-designate to Japan Raza Bashir Tarar, who called on him in Islamabad on Friday.

 

The President appreciated Japan’s continuous support to Pakistan on the FATF platform and asked the ambassador to convey his gratitude to the government of Japan for its decision to suspend debt repayments due from Pakistan under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative.

 

He said bilateral trade between the two countries stood at around 2.56 billion dollars which needs be improved with a greater focus on export of Pakistani goods and products to Japan.

 

While appreciating the support of Japan International Cooperation Agency with Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi said Japanese assistance should be sought for online training to Pakistani human resources in the fields of IT, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and other skills.

 

The President stressed on reducing the Japanese tariff to bring Pakistani products at par with its competitors enjoying duty-free access to Japanese markets, especially in the textile sector.

 

He also asked the Ambassador-designate to sensitize the Japanese leadership on the urgency to resolve the Kashmir dispute as per resolutions of the UN Security Council and on the increasing trend of marginalizing the minorities in India and Islamophobia.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan

The Financial Action Task Force has announced to formally remove Pakistan from its grey list.

 

This was announced by FATF President T Raja Kumar in Paris on Friday.

 

He said Pakistan had been on the grey list since 2018 and after a lot of work by the Pakistani authorities, they completed a combined 34 action items to address deficiencies in the anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing systems.

 

Raja Kumar said FATF welcomes this significant progress as a result Pakistan can now more effectively tackle anti-money laundering and terror financing.

 

He said an FATF team has verified that the reforms are in place and that there is a high-level of commitment and capacity to sustain those reforms. He said these reforms are good for the stability of the country and the region.

 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed gratitude for the removal of Pakistan’s name from FATF grey list.

 

In a series of tweets, he said Pakistan’s exiting the FATF grey list is a vindication of our determined and sustained efforts over the years.

 

He congratulated the civil and military leadership as well as all institutions whose hard work led to today’s success.

 

Shehbaz Sharif commended the role and efforts of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, their teams and all political parties for putting up a united front to get Pakistan out of the grey list.

 

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Ishaq Dar has felicitated the nation on removal of Pakistan’s name from the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list.

 

In a tweet, the finance minister said that the efforts of the civil-military team under the leadership of Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif in achieving the goal were highly commendable.

 

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb has congratulated the nation and coalition parties on Pakistan’s exit from FATF grey list.

 

In her tweets on Friday, she said it is the second time that Pakistan’s name was removed from the grey list under the leadership of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

 

She said the national integrity and interest are supreme to the allied parties whether they are in the government or the opposition.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan

Pakistan has reiterated that it will continue building on mutually beneficial cooperation with FATF members and the international community to sustain the gains.

 

In a press release on Friday, Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar thanked the FATF members and the international community for providing valuable support during the Action Plan period.

 

He said Pakistan has made enormous progress in the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism domain over the course of fulfilling requirements of both Action Plans.

 

Despite many challenges, including Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan continued the reform trajectory and sustained the high-level political commitment of aligning its domestic AML/CFT regime with international best practices.

 

The spokesperson said achieving FATF targets was a whole-of-nation endeavour. Multiple ministries, departments and agencies, both at the Federal and Provincial levels, contributed to achieving this national objective.

 

The engagement with FATF has led to strategic improvements in Pakistan’s laws and procedures, making its domestic AML/CFT regime more resilient to cope with current and future challenges.

 

He further said Pakistan looks forward to sharing its expertise, knowledge and experience with other countries to enhance effectiveness of FATF standards at the global level.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says utilization of local energy resources is top priority of his government.

 

Chairing a review meeting regarding transportation of Thar coal in Islamabad on Thursday, he said Thar coal can sufficiently fulfil our energy needs.

 

He said we will produce cheaper electricity by utilizing local coal instead of the imported one.

 

Secretary Railways apprised the meeting that Pakistan Railway as par directions of the Prime Minister will be able to supply local coal to power plants, cement factories and brick kilns across the country by laying a105 kilometre long track from Shhore to Islamkot by 23rd March next year.

 

He said overall cost of the project is 58 billion rupees that will be shared equally by the Federal and Sindh governments.

 

On the occasion, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also constituted a committee headed by Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, directing it to present a detailed report in next 72 hours regarding availability of Thar coal and its demand in the local market.

 

Others members of the committee include Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, Prime Minister’s Special Assistant Dr. Jahanzeb Khan, Director General Frontier Works Organization, Secretaries of concerned Ministries and experts.

 

Source: Radio Pakistan