The next budget announcement is round the corner, which may include a wide range of populist measures and electoral goodies. Among other things, the salaries of government employees may also be increased. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the magnitude of this increase will bowl everyone over!
Once upon a time, there was a bright golden metal. Every time there used to be an economic turmoil in the world; investors would flock to this golden lump, earning it the name of a safe-haven investment. There was a lot of optimism about it, markets were positive it would cross the $2,000 per ounce level by 2012 and the bulls were riding on this golden spree.
Hard work doesn always pay off, especially if the hard work is being performed in a high-inflation economy with limited prospects for business growth. As businesses struggle to survive in these dogged economic times, the salaried class employed in the private sector has had to contend with fewer jobs, stagnating salaries on one hand; and rocketing inflation on the other.
The deregulation of 2003-04 has been a mixed blessing for the telecom sector. While the mobile network operators grabbed the voice and VAS business and now seem ideally placed to capture the data segment; the 14 odd LDI operators have been beaten black and blue due to price wars and the menace of illegal gateways & exchanges.
The United Nations Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the pacific 2012 adds to the list of institutional reports underscoring the ubiquitous economic woes that Pakistan is mired in.
"It used to take at least an hour for me to reach work at the port from my home at Sohrab Goth" recalls Muhammad Husain, a citizen of Karachi. He adds, "Now thanks to the Lyari Expressway, my travel time has been halved".
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