Edhi Foundation introduces qualified technicians on board ambulances

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Edhi Foundation, the pioneer of introducing ambulance service all over Pakistan, took another important initiative by deploying qualified medical technicians in their ambulances that could provide emergency first aid to patients, particularly those suffering from heart stroke. 

Before deployment, these technicians have completed an 18-month training course at the Edhi Centre on how to cope with a patient emergency. 

Over 60 technicians, including women, were imparted training on how to inject drip, CPR and catering heart patients while shifting to hospitals. 

Faisal Edhi revealed that these training would further be modified as per modern days requirements and the paid technicians got training as an approved course from an Ireland institute.

Indian, Chinese ministers set to meet in Moscow

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

In an apparent effort to cool down tension on Line of Actual Control, the defence ministers of India and China are expected to hold talks in Moscow on later September 4, according to reports coming from New Delhi quoting government officials. 

This will be the first highest level face-to-face political contact since tensions flared along their disputed mountain border in May. 

The Indian Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh, was given clearance to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, in Moscow, where both of them were attending a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting, the report added.

Coronavirus Update: Sindh leads in infection, death

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

As many as five COVID-19 patients lost their lives during the last 24 hours, against seven deaths across the country, while 214 new cases were detected across the province, taking the overall tally of infection to 130,041 for the province on September 3.

According to national COVID-19 dashboard, Sindh’s rate of daily infection remained 2.62 % on morning of September 3, against Pakistan’s overall daily rate of 2.14%. 

The provincial government did not release any new data for the media on September 3, while the dashboard showed the overall death tally in the case of province as 2,420. 

With 202 new recoveries from the diseases, the number of patients having recovered was mentioned as 123,807 for Sindh. In all 8,155 new tests were conducted till September 3 morning, while there were 3,814 active COVID-19 patients. 

In the meantime, an official report revealed that 3,498 patients were in home-isolation, six were receiving treatment at the isolation centres, in addition to 310 at hospitals, including 140 hospitalized in critical condition, as of September 3.

As many as 21 patients were on ventilators. The persons, whose deaths were registered on September 3, were residents of Karachi Central (2), Karachi East (1), Karachi Korangi (1) and Karachi South (1).

It was further learnt that five persons who had died of COVID-19 on September 2 belonged to Karachi and the sixth one was from Hyderabad.

On September 3, new infections were reported from Karachi (119), Thatta (13), Badin (12), Dadu (4), Jamshoro (4), Mirpurkhas (4), Shikarpur (4), Tando Mohammad Khan (4), Naushero Feroze (4), Umerkot (3), Kambar Shahdadkot (3), Shaheed Benazirabad (2), Ghotki (2), Larkana (2), Hyderabad (2), Matiari (1), Sanghar (1), Khairpur (1), Sukkur (1), Tando Allahyar (1) and others.

Hustle, bustle return in Xinjiang

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Hustle and bustle has returned in the Chinese province of Xinjiang as the authorities withdrew lockdown restrictions after a month. 

The main shopping centres and food streets were found packed with visitors buying and eating the famous Xinjiang foods. The mood is festive and people have smiles returning on their faces.

At the same time, industrial activities also resumed in the province with people engaged in their usual business.

Xinjiang region in mainland China was the last one from where lockdown has been withdrawn. The restrictions were clamped a month ago after detection of COVID-19 infection cases.

KCR beneficial both for commuters, investment

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiatives, Asad Umar, has reckoned that the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) will be beneficial both for commuters and attractive for investment.

He expressed these views while chairing a meeting on the KCR to review the progress achieved on this mega project being implemented under the auspices of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). 

He directed the concerned officials to devise a strategy for Public-Private partnership for the KCR project. 

The meeting was informed that work on the KCR has already been undertaken in various phases and expected to it will be completed in the middle of 2023. 

The meeting was assured to take up the third phase of the KCR during current financial year. In order to ensure timely completion of each phase, the Ministry of Railways has been in contact with the Sindh government. For smooth and most convenient journey for the passengers as many as 24 flyovers and underpasses would be built during the project.

Pakistan’s unfulfilled potential in marble, granite

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Pakistan has big potential in the marble and granite sector but its contribution is reportedly just two percent in the world market. 

There were many reasons why Pakistan has been struggling in this naturally gifted industry behind other countries as it has lacked the latest technology right from the extraction to the finishing stages and marketing. 

The traders of marble and granite have attached with this emerging and promoting sector of Pakistan have demanded provision of basic infrastructure, motivation of the country's trade missions abroad  so that this sector’s products could be promoted in internal exhibitions.

They expect the concerned government organizations to play proactive role in fulfilling the potential of these two major items. 

Beijing allows direct flights from Pakistan, eight other countries

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

There’s gladdening news for the Pakistani passengers intending to travel to the Chinese capital Beijing as direct flights are being resumed from September 3.

This is a part of Beijing plans to gradually resume direct international flights starting, China's top civil aviation watchdog informed. 

Nine direct flights bound for Beijing from eight countries, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Greece, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Canada, will resume on September 3, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. 

Strict measures, however, will be carried out to contain imported COVID-19 cases, such as capping passenger loads for each aircraft. 

In the past to curb imported cases, all international flights bound for Beijing were diverted to other airports as their first port of entry since March 23. The passengers were examined and quarantined and before cleared to enter the capital. 

More direct flights will resume operations in accordance with outbreak risks, tourist demand and other factors, the administration said. 

"The direct flight for Beijing will greatly help Pakistanis particularly the traders who were working on various mega projects of CPEC," a prominent Karachi-based businessman remarked.

“Many traders have to meet officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Beijing, so before that they used not to land directly in Beijing as direct flights were banned. The business community used to undergo quarantine for 14-days in hotels on payment but now they would not face such hurdles,” he added.

NBP declares PKR 15 billion profit after tax

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services) 

Despite the numerous changes being faced by the banking industry since February due to the advent of coronavirus (COVID-19), National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has achieved profit after tax of PKR 15.2 million for the first six months of 2020. 

The Board of Directors of NBP met on September 1 during which it approved the condensed interim financial statements of the bank for the half-year ended June 30, 2020.

With strong growth in core earnings, NBP reported unconsolidated Profit After Tax of PKR 15.2 billion, up by PKR 4.1 billion or 36.8% compared to the same period last year. 

Its net assets increased by PKR 26.4 billion to PKR 259.0 billion from PKR 232.6 billion in December 2019, according to media release issued by the bank’s media department on September 2. 

During the first falf 2020, NBP earned gross mark-up/interest income amounting to PKR 145.3 billion which is 49% higher than PKR 97.7 billion while total earning assets averaged at PKR 2,428.1 billion, up from PKR 1,931.5 billion last June. 

Whereas, net advances averaged at PKR 971.1 billion being 6.6% higher than PKR 911.3 billion of Jun ’19, and recorded 18.7% growth in mark-up income that closed at PKR 57.6 billion. As the bank incurred cost of funds amounting to PKR 96.8 billion, net mark-up/interest income for H1 ’20 closed at PKR 48.4 billion, being 36.2% higher against PKR 35.6 billion earned during the first half of last year. 

Contributing a quarter to the total income, Non-Fund Income (NFI) for this period amounted to PKR 18.3 billion, marginally higher by PKR 0.14 billion or 1% than PKR 18.2 billion of H1, 2019. 

Despite high inflationary pressures, the bank did well at keeping a lid on the administrative expenses that clocked at PKR 29.5 billion. The total asset base of the bank on an unconsolidated basis amounted to PKR 3,163.4 billion which was 1.2% higher than PKR 3,124.4 billion as at December 31, 2019 while the investments continued to constitute the bulk of the asset-mix and increased by PKR 203.8 billion to PKR 1,643.0 billion, whereas net advances registered a decline of 7.2% over Dec ‘19, clocking in at PKR 935.6 billion. 

On the liabilities side, the deposit base of the Bank registered an increase of PKR 141.2 billion, improving the current account mix to 55.1% and CASA ratio to 83.1%. 

In June 2020, M/s VIS Credit Rating and PACRA Credit Rating re-affirmed the Bank’s credit rating as “AAA” (Triple AAA), the highest credit rating awarded by the company for a bank in Pakistan. 

In recognition of the successful deals and innovative initiatives that made a positive impact for its clients, NBP had recently been awarded two prestigious awards of Corporate Client Initiative of the Year (Pakistan) and the Innovative Deal of the Year (Pakistan) by the Asian Banking & Finance Magazine. 

It has been revalidating business assumptions with a focus on how the COVID-19 crisis may affect its asset quality and the adjustments needed to contain the impact on its overall business model.

NBP has remained committed to using its earnings to bolster the balance sheet and provisions have been increased substantially with the key element of the strategy already approved by the board being to support greater financial inclusion via participation in the SME, housing, agriculture and construction sectors. 

It has continued to play its role in supporting those segments which have been under pressure during the slowdown to help them retain their financial flexibility and play their due role in the economy.

US allows temporary imports from China

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Unlike China, the death toll from COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has spiked to all-time high and the American administration has granted short term exemption of dozens of items including disposable masks from China until the end of 2020, after the US elections.

The items given four months reprieve included disposable face masks, respirators, bluetooth tracking devices and musical instruments among the Chinese exports granted a new short-term exemption to trade war tariffs by the United States, its trade department announced. 

The products on List 1 of the Section 301 tariff action against China had been exempted on September 1, 2019, for one year. But the reprieve has been extended just four months, until the end of 2020. 

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) did not explain why the extension period was shortened, in a note published on the Federal Register, the official journal of the federal government that contains government agency rules, proposed rules and public notices. 

The four-month extension will cover the US election, allow China to continue making progress towards meeting the terms of the phase one trade deal, and could theoretically help avert further flare-ups in the trade war, the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported. 

Other items on the exclusion list included LCD display units, binoculars, postage stamps and earth-drilling machinery. This happens to be one of eight lists of exempted products issued under the USTR’s product-exclusion process launched last year.

Coronavirus Update: Countrywide spike

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Sindh, like other provinces of the country, witnessed the increase in its daily COVID-19 fatalities on September 1 when the authorities confirmed detection of 146 new infections, with six relevant deaths, during the last 24 hours.

As per the official data, Sindh had reported six COVID-19 deaths on August 27, which gradually decreased to two deaths on August 31. Sindh’s overall fatality toll was recorded as 2,409. 

The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his routine COVID-19 statement, issued after a break of a couple of days, shared that the number of patients who were under treatment was 3,822, including 3,504 in home-isolation, seven in government designated isolation centres and 311 in public and private hospitals, out of which 157 were in critical condition. 

“As many as 15 patients were receiving the ventilator intervention,” the Chief Minister  added. 

The COVID-19 testing laboratories examined 5,668, against their collective maximum capacity of 14,940, during the last 24 hours ending on September 1 at 8 am.

They in all found 222 samples positive for coronavirus, including 146 new infections.

As of September 1, Sindh has tested 1,005,994 samples so far, out of which 129,615 (13%) were declared positive.

New deaths reported on September 1 pertained to Karachi Central (2), Karachi South (2), Karachi East (1) and Karachi Korangi (1).

Sindh’s overall COVID-19 death tally rose to 2,409 on September 1. Karachi’s six districts in all registered 88 (60%) new cases during the last 24 hours, followed by Umerkot (11), Matiari (5), Hyderabad (4), Kambar Shahdadkot (4), Larkana (4), Shikarpur (4), Naushero Feroze (3), Ghotki (2), Jacobabad (2), Tando Allahyar (2) and others.

According to an official report, as many as 43,500 samples were drawn from targeted areas/quarters, including markets, shopping malls, tourists' spots, hotels, majalis/processions, shrines/urs, restaurants, polio/dengue health workers and government and private office workers during a period from August 12 to September 1, out of which 657 (1.51%) were found positive.

On the other hand, COVID-19 tests conducted in the rural areas of Sindh, during a period from August 27 to September 1, revealed that the maximum 1,092 samples were examined at Umerkot, out of which 12 came as positive, 366 were negative, while results of 714 samples were awaited.

It was further learnt that the maximum 665 of COVID-19 fatalities occurred in the Karachi East district, followed by Karachi Central (450), Karachi South (332), Karachi Korangi (247), Karachi West (208) and other, since March 19 when Sindh reported its first relevant death. The two deaths registered in Sindh on August 31 occurred among patients hospitalized at Karachi.