After years of contraction, a strategic pivot to debt-equity blends signals maturation—not just survival—in one of South Asia’s most resilient tech ecosystems In early April 2025, Omer bin Ahsan faced a familiar dilemma. The founder of Haball, a Karachi-based fintech enabling shariah-compliant supply chain financing, had spent months courting investors for a pre-Series A round….
The chai shop owner in Karachi’s Saddar district doesn’t track monthly balance of payments data, but he feels it in his bones. When the rupee weakens and import costs rise, his supplier charges more for tea leaves shipped from Kenya. When remittances surge from his cousin in Dubai, neighborhood purchasing power ticks upward, and his…
The summer of 2025 marked a quiet turning point for Pakistan’s economy. After years of lurching from one balance-of-payments crisis to another, foreign exchange reserves climbed past $21 billion—their highest level in over a decade. Inflation, which had terrorized households by peaking above 38% in mid-2023, fell to single digits. The rupee stabilized. The International…
There’s a peculiar rhythm to economic forecasting in polarized times. Last year, as President Trump’s second term began with talk of sweeping tariffs and aggressive trade renegotiations, professional economists did what they’re trained to do: they downgraded their growth projections. The US economic outlook 2026 dimmed considerably, with consensus forecasts sliding from a comfortable 2.4%…
On a gray January morning in Shenzhen, the production lines at BYD’s sprawling electric vehicle plant hum with algorithmic precision—robotic arms fitting battery cells, workers in crisp uniforms monitoring quality control dashboards. Sixty kilometers north, in the dormant construction zones of Evergrande’s unfinished Guangzhou towers, cranes stand motionless against the skyline, monuments to China’s protracted…
On a cold January morning in 2026, a container ship idled outside Rotterdam’s harbour, its cargo of semiconductors and rare earth minerals caught in the crossfire of the latest transatlantic trade dispute. Inside those steel boxes lay the raw materials for everything from smartphones to solar panels—products now subject to a bewildering array of tariffs,…
Discover the best investment in Pakistan 2026 with our expert analysis of top 10 best low price shares to buy today in Pakistan and 10 best shares to buy today in Pakistan for long term growth. Data-driven insights on PSX opportunities. Pakistan’s Equity Market Emerges as a Global Outlier As dawn breaks over Karachi’s I.I….
The shopkeeper in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar no longer bothers checking the official exchange rate. Every morning, he opens his phone to WhatsApp groups where the real price of the dollar flickers like a fever chart—120,000 rials one hour, 135,000 the next, sometimes 150,000 by afternoon. “The number doesn’t matter anymore,” he tells a regular customer,…
The drone strikes came at dawn. On a January morning in 2026, another wave of Russian missiles arced across Ukrainian skies, while in Khartoum, the sound of artillery fire echoed through emptied streets as Sudan’s civil war ground into its third year. In Gaza, the fragile ceasefire negotiated months earlier showed fresh signs of strain….
On the frigid evening of January 17, 2026, President Donald Trump lobbed what may prove to be the most audacious—and potentially destructive—ultimatum of his second term across the Atlantic. Via his preferred digital megaphone, Truth Social, Trump announced sweeping tariffs targeting eight of America’s closest European allies: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom,…
