Minimum profitrate on savingbank accountsupped to 6pcKARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan

(SBP) Friday directed the commercial

banks to pay minimum annual profit

rate of 6.0 percent on all Pak Rupee

saving deposits on average monthly

balances. The order would take effect

from April 1 (2013). This rate of profit

would be applicable on all existing and

new saving deposits including the term

deposits, said a circular issued by the

central bank Friday. This step of SBP,

the circular said, was likely to promote

savings and increase the financial

market depth and intermediation. Any

violation of the above instruction would

render the bank liable for punitive

action under the relevant provisions of

the Banking Companies Ordinance

1962, warned the regulator. The

market analyst, however, expected the

central bank to give a retrospective

effect to its order. STAFF REPORT

PTCL inauguratesOne Stop Shop witha new lookKARACHI: Pakistan

Telecommunication Company Limited

(PTCL) has recently inaugurated a

revamped One Stop Shop (OSS) in

Sukkur. As part of its ‘Customer First’

initiative, the company is facilitating its

customers through its nationwide One

Stop Shops offering a wide-range of

PTCL landline and broadband services.

The One Stop Shop was inaugurated

by Kamran Malik, PTCL Executive Vice

President (EVP), Customer Care. Abdul

Karim Danver, PTCL Regional General

Manager (RGM), Sukkur; Naeem

Siddiqui, PTCL General Manager,

Customer Care and other senior

officials of the company were also

present at the occasion. PTCL One

Stop Shops are strategically placed

nationwide, which serve and facilitate

the company’ s customers by offering

one-window operations including billing

adjustments and payments, fault

rectification, new service requests,

duplicate bills and many other telecom

services all under one roof. The

company has recently inaugurated its

revamped One Stop Shops in all major

cities acrossPakistan. NNI

01

ISLAMABAD

APP

PAKISTAN Railways on Fridayadded another 10 newly builtcoaches in its fleet, importedfrom China. Addressing the inau-guration ceremony, Federal Min-

ister for Railways Haji Ghulam AhmedBilour said that these new coaches wouldhelp Pakistan Railways to achieve progress.

The minister said that these coacheshave the capacity to run at the speed of 160km per hour but due to the dilapidatedtrack it would run at 120 km per hour.

He said that every government be-haved discriminatory treatment to PakistanRailways otherwise the railways couldhave turned into profit-oriented entity.

“If the government would approvethese seven projects of Pakistan Railwaysin 2009, the organization would have earnprofit,” the minister said.

Bilour said that during the last fiveyear, not even a single locomotive wasadded to the system. The minister said in2008, an agreement for purchase of 75 lo-comotives was signed with China but it re-mained confined to words.

The minister said most of the MNAs

have spent billion of ru-pees in their constituenciesbut Pakistan Railways re-ceived not even a pennyfor its uplift.

He said that the gov-ernment has allocated Rs70 billion for Benazir In-come Support Programmebut railways was totally ig-nored. Replying to a ques-tion, the minister said threeprojects were being run on public-privatepartnership including Business Train, Shal-imar-1 and Shalimar-2.

The minister said that Pakistan Rail-

ways was carrying onlyone percent of the freight, addingthat nine freight trains were running per

week that was in-s u f f i c i e n t .Around 20 loco-motives are re-quired to increaseone percent of thefreight operation.

The ministeralso announcedRs 3000 cashaward to theevery employeeof the CarriageFactory. To an-

other question, the minister said that theAwami National Party would contest thegeneral elections independently and wouldthink about the coalition after polls. He said

thatthere isno futureo fTeh reek -e -Insaf in KPKand would win hardly single seat from Pun-jab. Chairman Railways and other officialof the ministry, division office and Chineseofficials were also present on the occasion.

Pakistan Railways will receive 202coaches against a cost of around Rs 16 bil-lion to improve its operations and facilitatethe passengers. Out of the 202 coaches ofvarious types, Pakistan Railways has re-ceived 55 coaches in Completely BuiltUnit condition those are being utilized withdifferent trains plying across the country.

bUSiNESS

BSaturday, 16 March, 2013

Private sector should be given due role in caretaker

setup. — ICCI President Zafar Bakhtawari

PAKISTAN RAILWAYSCOULD HAVE TURNEDINTO A PROFIT-ORIENTED ENTITY IF ALLPREVIOUSGOVERNMENTS HAD NOTBEEN INDIFFERENT TOTHE DEPARTMENT

LAHORE

STAFF REPORT

Ambassador of European Union delega-tion to Pakistan Lars Gunnar Wigemark,visited Punjab board of investment &trade (PBIT) today. He was accompaniedby his wife and Husnain A. Iftakhar, thetrade officer of the EU to Pakistan. Thedelegation was warmly welcomed byJaved Akbar, Chief Executive OfficePBIT at arrival.

The Ambassador was given a com-prehensive briefing on the economic po-tential of Punjab and areas wherein theEU can further accentuate the economicdevelopment in the region. CEO PBITappreciated the provision of the Au-tonomous trade preferences to Pakistanin wake of the devastating floods of 2010and 2011 and further hoped that Pakistanwill be able to gain increased access tothe EU market once its inclusion in theupcoming GSP plus scheme of 2014 is fi-nalized. CEO further emphasized on theneed to diversify the exportable productrange from Pakistan to EU as well asmarket diversification within the EU re-gion. In the context of trade CEO PBIThighlighted the services such as trade fa-cilitation including matchmaking andmarket intelligence and alternative Dis-pute resolution being offered by PBIT.

The Ambassador of EU appreciated theefforts being undertaken at PBIT and as-sured of his complete support to PBIT fortrade expansion between Pakistan and EURegion. At the occasion the idea to hold aPunjab-EU Business event was also sug-gested by the Ambassador, which is hopedto create awareness amongst EU and Punjabof each other’s market potential and developextended business linkages. The Ambassa-dor Mr Lars Gunnar WIGEMARK was op-timistic of fruitful business ventures in thefuture considering the democratic process inPakistan has seen stability.

CEO showcased the recently approvedSEZ Act 2012, under which exemptionfrom customs duties and taxes for all capital

goods imported into Pakistan for the devel-opment, operations and maintenance of aSEZ; exemption from all taxes on incomeaccruable in relation to the developmentand operations of the SEZ for a period of10 years, starting from the date of signingof the development agreement will becomeaffective for the investors. He highlightedthat PBIT will be housing the SEZ Author-ity within PBIT and will play an active fa-cilitator role for prospective local andforeign investors in months to come.

It is pertinent to mention here thatcurrently EU region is the largest tradepartner of Pakistan with a trade of over 8million Euros in 2011-12. 70% of the ex-ports of Pakistan to EU consist of textiles.

World ConsumerRights Dayobserved

ISLAMABAD

NNI

The World Consumer Rights Day wasobserved across the globe including Pakistanon Friday. ‘Consumer Justice Now!’ is themeof World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD)2013. International Consumer Rights Day is anoccasion that relates to any and every personon this planet i.e. from children’s diet to theservices a person buys. The Day holds a uniquehistory of integrated association amongNational Consumers Organizations to establishInternational Organization of ConsumersUnion back in 1960 in London‚ thoughawareness of the concept was in USA by theefforts of Standards Organizations as early as1900. However‚ on March 15‚ 1962‚ USPresident John F. Kennedy made a historicspeech and highlighted four basic rights ofconsumers which led to the creation of

Consumers Bill of Rights. The United Nationsthrough the United Nations Guidelines forConsumer Protection endorsed the idea and in1985 expanded these into 8 rights‚ andthereafter Consumers International (amovement that now represents over 220member organizations in 115 countries aroundthe world) adopted these rights as a charter andstarted recognizing March 15 as WorldConsumer Rights Day.However the day wasfirst observed on 15 March 1983. The Networkfor Consumer Protection‚ commonly known as“The Network”‚ was founded in 1992 as NGOwith focus on medicines and public health‚later expanded its attention to consumerprotection in general. The basic objective of theday is to promote the fundamental rights of theconsumers. Every year on 15 March‚ the globalconsumer movement unites around a commontheme to deliver an exciting array ofcampaigning activities. WCRD 2013 will be animportant opportunity for consumerorganizations to draw the world’s attention tothe crucial role that consumer protection playsin making societies safer and fairer.Transitional economies and the developingworld can all benefit from improvements inconsumer protection. The day will also focuson bringing attention to those areas whichdesperately need improvement.

EU envoy proposesPunjab-EU business event

KARACHI

STAFF REPORT

Expecting fuel consumption to mark amodest 2.5 percent growth in fiscal year2012-13, the market analysts Friday ob-served the oil sales, excluding non-en-ergy, posting a hefty 18 percent MoM fallin Feb-13 to 1.4 million tons.

This massive decline mainly em-anated from a gigantic 30 percent MoMdrop in FO demand, 39 percent contribu-tion, which was further dragged by 12percent and 6 percent fall in Motor Spirit(MS) and High Speed Diesel (HSD), re-spectively. “As per our discussion withthe companies’ management, drop in Fur-nace Oil (FO) was mainly led by deliber-ate supply cuts to power sector by majorprovider i.e. PSO, due to circular debtissue,” said the analyst at Arif Habib Re-search in a report issued Friday. On theother hand, they said, as far as growth de-cline in MS was concerned, a high base-

effect was in place duringFeb-13 consumptionnumbers as Jan-13saw massive growthin petrol salesamid gas (CNG)shortage goingthrough roof.

A YoYcomparison forFeb-13 mirrorsquite an oppositepicture, where thesector posted rather3 percent YoYgrowth in oil consump-tion. This was mainly onaccount of strong demand pull-back in MS and HSD by 27 percent YoYand three percent YoY, respectively, as ex-treme scarcity of CNG revitalized the de-mand of conventional fuels. FO, on theother hand despite lower hydel generation,posted a YoY drop of 9 percent in Feb-13

to 0.5 million tons, as theOMCs remained reluc-

tant to increase theirexposure to the cir-

cular debt-plagued FOmarket.

For thec u m u l a t i v e8MFY13, oilconsumptionremained flat

around 12.6million tons as

the massive 18 per-cent YoY growth

achieved in MS volumeswas largely diluted by a 3

percent and 1 percent fall in HSD andFO volumes, respectively. The impact ofmild percentage drop in these segmentshas a wider impact on the total sales aslater both contribute around 78 percent ofthe total oil consumption. A steep 35 per-

cent fall in FO volumes led PSO’s marketshare to drop by 5 percentage points to 59percent in Feb-13 compared to 64 percentin Jan-13 as FO constitutes around 50 per-cent of the total volumetric sales of PSO.

However on a cumulative 8MFY13basis, the Oil Giant holds its leadershipposition at 64 percent market share.Lower gas availability for transportationsector coupled with ban on the installationof CNG kits in new vehicles has led tostrong substitution effect for petrol, evi-dent from a massive 14 percent YoY jumpin MS sales to 2.1 million tons. “We be-lieve this demand momentum to gatherpace going forward, as continued substi-tution effect is expected to take MS de-mand up 18 percent YoY in FY13 to 3.2million tons,” said the analysts.

They said that increased use of CNGin public transportation across the coun-try had been taking its toll on the HSDdemand leading to a 3 percent YoY dropin 8MFY13.

Sluggish demand for furnace oil downs oil sales by 18pc in February

PR adds another 10 coaches to fleet

The basic objective of theday is to promote the

fundamental rights of theconsumers

Lower gasavailability for

transportation sectorcoupled with ban on

the installation of CNG kits in new

vehicles has led tostrong substitution

effect for petrol

Federal Minister for Railways Ghulam Bilour

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bUSiNESSSaturday, 16 March, 2013

Major Gainers

COMPANY OPEN HIGH LOW CLOSE CHANGE TURNOVERPhilip Morris Pak. 221.44 232.51 220.05 232.51 11.07 12,800Exide (PAK) 331.02 344.99 336.00 340.00 8.98 1,500Pak.Int.Cont.SD 177.00 185.85 180.00 185.85 8.85 11,300Millat Tractors XDXB 506.64 516.00 506.25 513.35 6.71 14,400Attock Petroleum Ltd479.05 485.00 480.00 482.38 3.33 31,600

Major LosersUniLever Pak 10700.00 10700.00 10500.00 10644.75 -55.25 80Bata (Pak) 1280.00 1260.00 1260.00 1260.00 -20.00 100Indus Dyeing SD 470.00 480.00 447.00 464.40 -5.60 1,200Pak Oilfields XD 453.97 454.50 445.11 448.64 -5.33 381,000Abbott Lab. 209.73 207.90 201.00 204.46 -5.27 900

Volume Leaders

Lotte PakPTA 7.42 7.96 7.45 7.74 0.32 13,199,000P.T.C.L.A 20.21 20.75 19.72 20.49 0.28 10,447,000Engro Corporation 123.36 121.25 118.30 119.61 -3.75 9,025,300Jah.Sidd. Co. 13.97 14.44 13.91 14.25 0.28 7,086,500P.I.A.C.(A) 6.81 7.17 6.55 6.62 -0.19 6,607,000

interbank RatesUSD PKR 97.9654GBP PKR 148.3196JPY PKR 1.0187EURO PKR 127.8351

ForexBUY SELL

Australian Dollar 102 103UK Pound Sterling 150 151.5Euro 131 132US Dollar 99.2 99.45Canadian Dollar 97.5 98Japanese Yen 1.028 1.15Saudi Riyal 26.3 26.5U.A.E Dirham 26.85 27.05China Yuan 13.5 14

NBP to establish largest financial datacentre in country

KARACHI: In line with the NBP President’s vision

of technology at the core of banking, National Bank

of Pakistan inked its Data Center Project on turnkey

basis with Getronics (AGCN) Pakistan. The project

shall be an International Standards Certified Tier III

Data Center Project. This Data Center facility will

serve more than 1290 online branches for

Centralized Banking Applications; to ensure

24x7x365 (Always Online) IT services across the

bank and all its applications including a 24 hours IT

services monitoring & operations center. The

Project Head NBP Mr. Qasim Y. Khan (Vice

President/Wing Head IT Strategic Planning Wing)

and country manager Getronics Pakistan Mr. Faisal

Rao signed the contract in the presence of the

President, National Bank of Pakistan Dr. Asif A.

Brohi and senior executives of the bank. Mahmood

Siddique (Chief Information Officer) and Mr. Yasir

Ansari (Deputy CIO) acknowledged the project to

be a success for the future NBP services & increase

customer satisfaction through highest availability

and resiliency. This is one of its kind projects in the

financial industry of Pakistan with latest equipment

and technology and an IT milestone for the largest

commercial bank of Pakistan. PRESS RELEASE

Samsung introducesGALAXY S4 LAHORE: Samsung

Electronics announced

today the fourth

generation GALAXY S,

the GALAXY S 4,

designed to get you

closer to what matters

in life and bring your

world together.

Understanding what

matters most to us in

our lives, the Samsung

GALAXY S 4 was

developed to redefine

the way we live and to

maximize our

fulfillment of life. This

sleek and innovative

smartphone makes

every moment of life

very meaningful; it understands the value of

relationships, enabling true connections with

friends and family. It believes in the importance of

an effortless user experience, making your life easy

and hassle-free; and, it empowers your life, helping

take care of your well-being. The beauty of the

phone is the highly crafted design encompassing a

larger screen size and battery, minimized bezel; all

housed in a light (130g) and slim (7.9mm) shape.

The Samsung GALAXY S 4 is slimmer yet stronger,

with less to hold yet more to see. It has come up

with simply unreal beauty. At launch, two color

options will be available - Black Mist and White

Frost; with a variety of additional color options to

follow later this year. “With the GALAXY S 4,

Samsung is again going to enhance the way we

live,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT &

Mobile Communications Division at Samsung. “All

the innovative features of GALAXY S 4 were

developed based on the insights and needs we

found from our consumers all around the world.

Following the successful GALAXY S series, this

phone is yet another great proof point of people-

inspired innovation. At Samsung we’ll never stop

pursuing innovation conceived by people, so we can

inspire them in return.” PRESS RELEASE

UK companies

making most of strong

ties with Pakistan

LONDON: Senior FCO Minister, Baroness Warsi,

addressed more than 60 UK companies gathered in

London from sectors including retail and financial

services for the inaugural UK - Pakistan Trade and

Investment Conference at an event to promote

opportunities, share knowledge and make

connections with senior business representatives

from Pakistan. Baroness Warsi said: “We simply do

not hear enough about the enormous opportunities

that Pakistan offers. Pakistan is an investor-

friendly and relatively open economy. Over 100

British businesses are already there and more

should look at the opportunities. They should

think of the Foreign Office and UK Trade and

Investment as their support network on the ground

through our dedicated trade offices in Karachi,

Lahore and Islamabad.” Currently over £2 billion

in goods and services is traded between the UK

and Pakistan every year. The governments of both

countries have committed to increasing this to

£2.5billion by 2015 and are on track to meet that

commitment. PRESS RELEASE

McDonald’s Pakistanparticipating in globalcelebrations for NationalBreakfast DayLAHORE: McDonald’s Pakistan will be amongst

almost five thousand McDonald’s restaurants in

Asia, Middle East and Africa - offering up to one

thousand free Egg McMuffins to their customers

during breakfast hours (6:00am to 10:00am) on

March 18th, 2013. McDonald’s is calling this

National Breakfast Day. With so many participating

restaurants, the numbers involved become

significant – potentially, this will be a free

breakfast for five million McDonald’s customers

throughout Asia, Middle East and Africa. – and

more than 1000 customers in each participating

McDonald’s on this one morning in Pakistan. “And

we fully expect to serve this number,” says Jamil

Mughal, Director Marketing, McDonald’s Pakistan.

“We want to demonstrate to our busy consumers

in a truly tangible way that we are an affordable

and tasty way to start the morning. National

Breakfast Day with McDonald’s on March 18th is a

way to illustrate that no one else can do it like

McDonald’s.” PRESS RELEASE

CORPORATE CORNER

KARACHI: Consul General of Malaysia Abubakar Mamat, Vice President Emirates Pakistan Khalid SS Bardan

and others at Malaysia Grand Prix Tickets and Giveaway Ceremony at Malaysian Consulate. STAFF PHOTO

LAHORE: Begum Zakia Shahnawaz and Professor

Hina Tayyaba, vice chancellor PIFD, present

laptops to PIFD students. PR

KARACHI: The Country Head of DS Concepts

Qaseen Jafri pictured with Australian High

Commissioner Peter Heyward at Farooqui House

reception. PR

02

B

US-Pakistan relations ‘back on

track’. — Ambassador Masood Khan

KARACHI

NNI

KARACHI Chamber of Commerce & In-dustry’s President Muhammad HaroonAgar has expressed that Pakistan is themost promising country for investmentby Koreans; immense opportunities ex-

ists to enter into joint ventures in Pakistan in the al-ternate energy, agriculture and engineering sectors.

While exchanging views with the ConsulGeneral of the Republic of Korea in KarachiChang Hee Lee, he was of the view that owing toPak-Korea great trade potential, the recent tradeof about $1.3bn may incline to $3~5bn in nextfive years while effectively tapping the existingtrue potential. In 2012, Pakistan’s total exports toKorea stood at $4.99 Million while importersfrom Korea were $6.11 Million, he said.

He stated that many Korean giants like Lotte,Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Daewoo etc. are operat-ing business successfully in Pakistan, therefore,he said, establishing Korea Special EconomicZone in Karachi is indispensable.

“The Government of Pakistan has alreadypassed Special Economic Zone Law and likewise,

establishment of Japan Special Economic Zoneis in progress. The Leaders of Pakistanand Korea have agreed to pro-mote cooperation in a numberof areas like manufactur-ing, finance, transport,education and culture.An estimated $5 Bil-lion of Korean invest-ment is in pipeline,”he said.

“During officialtrip of Pakistani Pres-ident Korea two coun-tries signed frameworkagreement for Grant-Aidfor poverty reductionthrough Korea InternationalCooperation Agency (KOICA),Malakand Tunnel Project $ 78 Millionloan Agreement to be provided by EXIM BankKorea, MoU between Korean Ministry of Land,Transport and Maritime Affairs and PakistaniMinistry of Railways on Railway Developmentcooperation. It is learned that Lotte the Koreangiant in Pakistan was further expanding its busi-

ness while companies in steel sectors were alsointerested in invest in Pakistan”, he said.

He said that Lahore-Islamabad Motorway,Lowari Tunnel, Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas dual car-riage Highway projects endorse the Pak-Koreadeep friendship. He admired that despite of nega-tive travel advisory, the Korean do not hesitate tovisit Pakistan. He also urged both governments toexpedite negotiations to sign Free Trade Agree-ment (FTA). He also enlightened the Consul Gen-eral about the key role of Karachi Chamber in thesocio-economic development of Pakistan and in-formed about the aims of KCCI to develop re-gional trade. He also requested the ConsulGeneral to invite business delegation and ex-hibitors to participate in the Karachi Chamber’sMy-Karachi Oasis of Harmony Exhibition sched-uled to be organized in July 2013.

Consul General of the Republic of Korea inKarachi Chang Hee Lee recognized the vi-

brant role of Karachi Chamber topromote trade and industry. Im-

mense possibility of eco-nomic and commercial

cooperation do exist, hesaid. He was of theview that the Cham-bers of two countriesshould play vibrantrole to facilitate theprivate sectors ofboth sides. He as-

sured best supportfrom the Korean Con-

sulate General to themembers of KCCI. He

said that the Korea Trade In-vestment Promotion Agency

(KOTRA) was committed to facilitatebusiness community and interested businessmenmay contact KOTRA for their business queries.

Senior Vice President KCCI Shamim Firpo andManaging Committee Members also participatedin the meeting. President KCCI also presentedChamber’s crest to the Korean Consul General.

Pakistan mostpromising country forKorean investment,says KCCI president

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