Day: June 22, 2021

Pakistan’s largest meat plant, Fauji Meat Limited, has been granted approval by the Government of Malaysia for exports, the Adviser to the Prime Minister for Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, announced on Tuesday.

His tweet in this regard read: “This shows that international acceptability & demand of Pakistani meat is gradually increasing”.

He also appreciated the efforts made by the Ministry of Commerce’s (MOC) Trade & Investment Counselor in Kuala Lumpur, and urged him “to provide maximum facilitation to the country’s meat exporters to obtain similar approvals”.

It is worth mentioning that Pakistan’s exports of meat and meat preparations are gradually penetrating different countries in terms of volume and value as it recorded a staggering increase of over 100 percent over a decade.

Pakistan’s annual meat exports have doubled over the last decade from $152.4 million in FY11 to $304.2 million in FY20.

More recently, in H1-FY21, the export of meat and meat preparations has grown by 3.6 percent to $161.5 million from $155.8 million in H1-FY20, according to a quarterly report by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

By the end of 10 months of the current financial year 2022-2021, the exports of meat and meat preparations have surged to $280 million, which is almost nine percent higher than the corresponding period of the last financial year, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Source: Pro Pakistani

The government has decided to issue domestic and international Ijara Sukuk worth $3.5 billion against ‘Unencumbered’ assets of the government including Allama Iqbal Lahore, Islamabad, Multan International Airports and some portions of M-1 and M-3 motorways as well as Islamabad Expressway.

Sources told Propakistani that the federal cabinet will give the approval on Tuesday (today), to utilize these assets for the issuance of domestic and International Ijara Sukuk.

The Finance Division intends to take forward its domestic and international Ijara Sukuk programs to support the government’s budgetary position and promote the Islamic banking industry in-country.

Sukuk are Sharjah compliant borrowing instruments structured to pay returns on investment as rent instead of interest by utilizing an underlying asset. In the case of Ijara Sukuk, tangible assets are utilized to structure the transactions.

Sources said that the Finance Division has undertaken 32 domestic and 4 international Ijara Sukuk transactions amounting to Rs 1,573 billion and $ 3.6 billion to date. Further, the government has also issued two ‘Energy Sukuk’ of Rs 200 billion each in March 2019 and May 2020 of selected government-owned power generation and distribution companies to settle power sector arrears.

Presently, the government has utilized (MI, M2 and M3 Motorway, Jinnah International Airport Karachi) assets for domestic Ijara Sukuk in the past.

The M2 motorway was utilized in January 2005 for international Ijara Sukuk and later on, it was divided into three sections which were utilized from December 2014 onwards. At present, M1 and M3 motorways, the Islamabad Chakwal section of M2 Motorway are unencumbered.

Besides this, the government initiated a domestic Ijara Sukuk program of Rs. 756 billion by utilizing the unencumbered land of Jinnah International Airport (JIA), Karachi in March 2020. The asset is almost fully utilized with the issuance of domestic Ijara Sukuk worth Rs. 636 billion, and structuring of Islamic Naya Pakistan Certificates (INPCs) of around Rs. 59 billion.

As JIA Karachi will be exhausted shortly, there is an urgent need to identify new unencumbered assets to ensure uninterrupted issuance of Ijara Sukuk in the domestic as well as international capital markets.

Sources said that the continuity in the issuance of domestic Sukuk will also enable the government to meet its target of having 10 percent Shariah-compliant instruments in domestic securities by the end of FY23 (Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy 2019/20-2022/23).

At end-December 2020, this was at 3.8 percent. The Federal Cabinet In its meeting dated January 26, 2021 directed the Finance Division to Identify options of underlying assets for Sukuk issuances.

Sources said that the finance division has proposed to raise $3.5 billion out of Rs. 1.2 trillion needed for raising additional resources as per the next year’s domestic and external financing plan.

It has identified M-1 and M-3 motorways, Islamabad Expressway, and Islamabad and Multan International Airports and also requested the Ministry of Communications/NHA and the Aviation Division/Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to grant necessary permissions to utilize these assets for Ijara Sukuk issuances.

As per the details, the Aviation Division/CAA has not responded however the Ministry of Communications, while assuring its cooperation has asked the Finance Division to consider compensating NHA with an appropriate ‘asset utilization fee’ for its assets which is totally unprecedented.

In view of the above and the urgent requirement to continue the government’s domestic and international Sukuk programs and the issuance of Islamic NPCs, the Federal Cabinet is requested to permit Finance Division to utilize the above-mentioned assets without any conditionality in terms of compensation or fee, and for the purpose, necessary NOCs will be sought from entities/provincial governments concerned. Valuation of the assets will be updated once these are made available to the Finance Division.

Source: Pro Pakistani

Trivizia, a Lahore-based live video streaming platform, has secured $400,000 in seed round funding from 47 Ventures, a Pakistan-based firm focused exclusively on the country’s tech industry.

Founded in late 2019, Trivizia’s app-based game show, Jeeto Naaye Andaz Say, goes live at 10 p.m. every day and attracts as many as 10,000 participants. The mobile app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times on the Google Play Store. Participants get a chance to win cash prizes simply by answering a set of ten multiple-choice questions.

Currently, the Trivizia team is working on real-time market research and related solutions for potentially enabling other brands to promote their products with their platform. In this regard, co-founder Wawaas Alvi explained,

The challenges of live streaming media have already been addressed by Youtube Live, Facebook Live, and other social platforms but with Jeeto Naye Andaz Say, we are handling the complexities of interactive live streaming at scale. Our user base is increasing every day, and optimizing the technology to overcome this challenge is something this funding round will help us achieve

With the new funds from 47 Ventures, Trivizia plans on evolving its user-base model to entertain thousands of players simultaneously. Speaking of user-base, the Country Director for 47 Ventures, Khurram Zafar, commended the startup for developing such a neat platform. He remarked,

“We are excited about what lies ahead: more frequent and specialized shows, educational content for younger demographics, and development of a real-time, market research & digital advertisement platform.

Game shows have become quite popular in Pakistan since the early 2015s, and Trivizia plans on re-modeling these events with its mobile-based platform.

To paint a picture, live game shows on television channels are typically joined by a few dozen people in the audience, who then get to play games for a plethora of prizes. With Trivizia’s Jeeto Naye Andaz Say, the platform will essentially become the next best venue for participating in such games, with an improved touch of experience, learning, and rewards.

Source: Pro Pakistani

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has extended the temporary suspension of 0.12 percent service charges on the deposit of re-issuable balances for commercial banks.

In order to facilitate banks in managing their excess liquidity, consequent to large volumes of withdrawals on the eve of Eid and the pandemic, the SBP has decided to extend the temporary suspension of 0.12 percent service charges on the deposit of re-issuable balances with the SBP BSC offices or NBP chests branches.

Accordingly, banks can deposit re-issuable balances with the SBP BSC offices or NBP chests without levy of 0.12 percent service charges on the deposit of re-issuable balances until 31 December 2021.

The banking regulator used to deduct 0.12 percent service charges on banks against the deposit of re-issuable balances with the SBP BSC offices or NBP chest branches.

Source: Pro Pakistani