National Agenda | Delivering real CHANGE
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
Javed Chaudhary on Haji Parvaiz Khan Case
Column | Javed Chaudhary
This column was published in Daily Express dated May 10, 2009.
Javed Chaudhary asks Nawaz Sharif to step forward
Column | Javed Chaudhary
This column was published in Daily Express dated May 08, 2009.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The best work of Punjab Govt 2008
Column | Hassan Nisar
This column was published in Daily Jang dated November 05, 2008.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Why our leadership was disqualifed by Dogar courts ?
Column | Hamid Mir
This column was published in Daily Jang dated March 02, 2009.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Lahore Orange line Metro Train Project
Column | Syed Mubashir Hussain
This column was published in Daily Express dated May 24, 2014.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Role of PMLN in restoration of Judiciery
Column | Amir Hashim Khakwani
This column was published in Daily Express dated March 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Interview | Provincial Minister for Women Development Punjab
Hameeda Waheed ud Din
This interview was published in Daily Waqt Sunday magazine dated June 08, 2014.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Survey report | The most successful CM of Pakistan
Shahbaz Sharif | The most successful CM of Pakistan
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| http://e.dunya.com.pk/detail.php?date=2014-06-08&edition=LHR&id=1105871_11289933 |
Good news about Pakistan | Wall Street Journal
Good news about Pakistan | Wall Street Journal
- On the rise: Argentina is among the frontier markets seeing considerable interest from multinational companies.
- Bloomberg News
Fresh from its coronation as the biggest economy in Africa, Nigeria has scored another first. The troubled West African country has emerged as the frontier-market economy that is attracting the most attention from American and European multinationals.
Nigeria is joined by Argentina and Vietnam as the frontier markets that multinational corporations are most interested in investing in, according to a new index of corporate sentiment.
The Frontier Markets Sentiment Index, created exclusively for the Wall Street Journal by Washington DC-based advisory firm Frontier Strategy Group, tracks the level of interest shown by major European and American multinational companies in countries across the frontier markets world.
The index is a based on information collected from FSG’s roughly 200 multinational clients, which include companies such as Coca-ColaKO +0.24%, General ElectricGE +1.53%, NovartisNOVN.VX +0.82%, Dell and Akzo NobelAKZOY -0.14%. Matt Lasov, FSG’s global head of advisory and analytics, explains how the index works: “We collect data about which countries the companies are watching for potential future investment. Over time, that gives us a clear picture of their market priorities—which countries are they including in their future plans and which they are dropping.”
The research provides two key insights: the current state of sentiment toward countries in the frontier markets, and the change in sentiment over time. Corporate sentiment is calculated as the percentage of companies that include a particular country on their watch-list. If 50 of the 200 companies are keeping an eye on a particular country, the sentiment index score would be 25%.
The data point to some striking regional differences. Of the 20 countries attracting most interest from multinationals, nine are in sub-Saharan Africa. Few will be surprised to see Kenya and Nigeria among the top tier, but Ethiopia and Tanzania making it onto the list as the 12th- and 13th-most watched countries respectively might cause a few raised eyebrows.
One person who won’t be surprised to see growing interest among multinationals for investing in Ethiopia is Alexander Benard, chief operating officer of Schulze Global, a private equity firm. “We are very excited about Ethiopia,” Benard says. “We believe it has huge potential.”
WSJ Frontiers Newsletter
Schulze Global is so excited about the prospects for Ethiopia that the firm has set up a $100 million fund specifically to invest there.
Other regions are less well-represented among the top 20. While Southeast Asian economic powerhouse Vietnam is among the top three countries, Asia accounts for just three frontier markets in the top 20.
The same is true for the Middle East, with only Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait representing the region in the top 20. Latin America contributes just two countries—Argentina and Venezuela—to the top 20. However, despite the country’s recent travails, Argentina is still generating considerable interest among multinationals, with one in four including it in their watch list.
The corporate world’s fascination with Africa shows through clearly in the rates of change of sentiment, too. The data compare an average of corporate sentiment for year-to-date 2014 with an average of the results over the full-year 2013.
Four of the five countries with the highest positive change in sentiment are in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as seven of the top 10.
Pakistan, though, is ahead of the pack in terms of the number of companies newly taking an interest in it. Sentiment toward the South Asian nation of 183 million people improved by 5.6 percentage points, putting it ahead of Africa’s rising stars Nigeria and Kenya, which each saw sentiment improve by just over four percentage points.
In absolute terms, though, Nigeria is still the clear leader among the three with twice the number of companies in the index considering investing there. Nearly three in 10 companies have Nigeria on their watch list.
By contrast, Pakistan’s South Asian neighbors Bangladesh and Sri Lanka appear to be losing their appeal, with each seeing the number of companies focused on them slashed by more than half.
Myanmar, which has only recently emerged as a potential destination for investment, saw a similar decline in corporate interest, with a meager 4% of companies including it in their watch list. Companies’ waning interest in Myanmar most likely reflects the realization among executives that the country is far from ready to receive significant foreign investment in most sectors.
Not surprisingly, the country that saw the greatest decline in attention from multinationals was Ukraine, whose 12.5-point decline was almost double that of the next-worst performer, Oman. While financial investors have seen healthy returns from their high-risk bets on the tumultuous central European economy, businesses are looking elsewhere for long-term opportunities.
Overall, sentiment toward frontier markets among the 200 or so multinationals included in the survey declined. All but 14 of the 70 countries covered in the survey have seen the level of corporate interest in them subside since last year.
Mr. Lasov believes the slide is less about the fundamental appeal of newly emerging markets and more about the revived interest in the developed world. “In the past few years, there has been a rebound in developed markets, which has attracted companies’ attention,” he says. “At the same time, companies have looked at the frontier markets and realized that many of them have tiny populations, so to build a business or manage a business in these smaller markets may not be worth the time.”
WSJ Frontiers will be reviewing the FM Sentiment Index on a quarterly basis.
Write to Dan Keeler at dan.keeler@wsj.com.
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Saturday, June 7, 2014
Youth programmes - Am engine of socio-economic change
Youth programmes - Am engine of socio-economic change
Nauman AshrafPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif presided over the second computerized balloting for grant of 6000 loans to the youth including women, under Prime Minister’s Youth Business loans Scheme on Wednesday. The first balloting held recently also disbursed loans to the same number of men and women. The Youth Business Loan Scheme initiative differs from the previous failed schemes in many respects.
It is being implemented through commercial banks who can take care of all aspects of the loans without political interference in line with the policies chalked out by the government. Another aspect is the commitment of the government to ensure utmost transparency in advancing these loans to make sure that the loans are given only to the really deserving individuals.
The third salient feature of the scheme is the element of gender equality proposed for these loans. These loans will range between five hundred thousand to two million; fair enough for starting a personal business. This would provide excellent opportunities to skilled, qualified and professional youth of both genders to explore and set up avenues of self-employment in a dignified manner and add to the prosperity of their respective families. As is evident the package of the youth programmes is an engine of socio-economic change in the country.
The Prime Minister had announced the launch of six different schemes in September 2013 namely Small Business Loans Scheme, Micro Interest free Scheme, Youth Training Scheme, Youth Skill Development Scheme, Fee Assistance Scheme and PM Scheme for Lap Tops. The interest-free loan scheme for the youth announced on 13thMay will benefit one million individuals costing Rs.3.5 billion to the exchequer. The scheme envisaging disbursement of loans up to Rs.50,000 through Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund will cover the entire countryespecially rural and far flung areas with 50% share going to young women. The Prime Minister during his election campaign had promised to launch schemes for the youth aimed at helping them start their own businesses and building their capacities for self-employment.
The launch of the interest free loan scheme alsorepresents another step towards the fulfillment of the pledge which constitutes a significant initiative to changethe economic situations of the youth besides triggering a process of sustained socio-economic development in the country. The scheme targeted at the poorer andunderprivileged sections of the society is a very humane gesture on the part of the Prime Minister which indicates his concern and sympathy for the down-trodden masses.Similarly Fee Assistance Scheme for students from the far-flung and comparatively less developed areas of the country will also not only facilitate the youth of those areas to pursue higher studies unruffled by the paucity of resources but would also be a tremendous help to their families as well.
The Youth Skills Development Scheme that envisages to impart technical training to boys and girls who have studied only up to eighth level and on the job training for the graduates with monthly scholarship of Rs.10000 are also prudent policy initiatives. The PM lap top scheme targeting the deserving students with good academic records is also a brilliant idea to encourage them to pursue their studies with more dedication and commitment.
The status of the youth of a nation as architects of its future progress and prosperity, has an unqualified universal recognition in the modern era and that is why the nations all over the world focus considerable attention on harnessing the potential of their young generations—their human capital---through education and imparting of skills to ensure their productive absorption in the workforce as well as the creation of opportunities for their self-employment to accelerate socio-economic development of the country. In most of the developing and poor countries, lack of education, finances and technological skills are the biggest hindrances in their gainful employment in whatever opportunities are available in the job-market. Thus the growing un-employment among the youth not only affects the economic progress of that country but also unleashes disastrous consequence for the society in the shape of lawlessness and crimes.
The idea of targeting the youth from the less privileged classes gained currency during the early fifties , became a wide spread phenomenon in the eighties and now forms an integral part of any growth model evolved in the third world countries. The strategy adopted was to provide micro-credit to the youth for setting up their own business, small industries, improving their technological skills for enhancing their chances of employability or pursing their higher education. This is regarded as a very vital ingredient of a sustained economic growth. Bangladesh and Nepal in our region who adopted this growth model are far ahead of us at the moment though they were far behind us to start with.
Viewed in the backdrop of the foregoing the package for the youth announced by the PML (N) government, is an imaginative move to tackle un-employment among youth and also enhancing their skills and capability to engage productively in the national effort to change the socio-economic profile of the country.
Though Rs.100 billion allocated for the purpose may look pea-nuts to some in view of the snow-balling unemployment among the youth but it still is a very substantial leap in the right direction. Economic recovery permitting and more resources becoming available with the government, these allocations are surely to be enhanced and the scheme will be made a permanent feature of the national economic strategy, as the Prime Minister has promised. As they say it is the first step in the right direction that really matters. The process becomes self-sustained once it is nudged on to the right path.
The country can move forward only when there are greater employment opportunities in the private sector. Pakistan government at present employs only 7% of the work force and with more and more people joining the labour market, the private sector has to play a wider and more expansive role in this area. Pakistani youth are around 35-40% of the total population and any move that ensures and guarantees their gainful employment is bound to accelerate the process of economic progress due to its multiplier effect besides enhancing tax revenues of the government that this newly initiated economic activity will generate.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Interview | Mamnoon Hussain
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Fiscal policies of PMLN | NA debate
NA Debate | Ishaq Dar
This speech is extracted from the National Assembly debate record for 15 May 2014.
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