"PLUGGING" · 총 5건
필터 보기현재 지수
49.5
0 = 부정 우세
50 = 중립
100 = 긍정 우세
최근 7일 기준 81,170건을 분석한 결과, 뉴스 심리지수는 49.5(균형)입니다. 긍정 10,032건(12.4%)·중립 58,501건(72.1%)·부정 12,637건(15.6%)이며, 중립 비중이 뚜렷하게 높습니다. 성향 지수는 종합 21.2(보수 경향)입니다.
The companies announced the partnership Wednesday in San Francisco, where Visa outlined spending limits and fraud controls for agent-initiated transactions
Coalition to set up spy agency in response to 'increasingly challenging geopolitical and security situation across the world' as Government prepares to take over the EU presidency.
As is tradition, the day of the budget announcement remains a non-event for many consumers, who know that the finance minister’s speech in the National Assembly will bring little in the way of relief, focusing instead on praising the government’s past measures and setting new budgetary and revenue targets under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, this year’s budget carries greater significance, as consumers are already struggling to make ends meet amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Higher freight and insurance charges imposed by shipping lines following the US–Israel and Iran conflict have pushed up the cost of production. Some manufacturers have tried to absorb this cost pressure, while others have simply passed the burden on to consumers. This has been partly cushioned by relative stability in the rupee–dollar parity; otherwise, the situation would have been far more alarming. Prospects for strong industrial growth remain constrained under the current IMF programme, as fiscal consolidation and revenue generation continue to be key priorities Consumers are curtailing petrol and diesel purchases due to unaffordable prices. Monthly petrol and diesel sales are not showing any growth despite rising bike and four-wheeler sales. During 11MFY26, petrol and diesel sales stood at seven million tonnes and 6.35m tonnes, showing a marginal year-on-year (YoY) rise of two per cent and 1pc, respectively. Cost pressures set to persist Senior Vice President, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during a recent meeting with the business community, indicated that the upcoming budget is expected to focus on export-led growth. However, ‘significant relief on essential commodities appears unlikely’. The government is targeting a revenue collection of around Rs15.2 trillion for FY27, suggesting the introduction of additional taxation measures to meet fiscal objectives. The continued phasing out of subsidies under the IMF programme could increase the cost of goods and services, adding further pressure on consumers, he said. “A reduction in the 18pc GST also seems difficult given the government’s commitment to achieving IMF revenue targets,” Magoon said, adding that while some sector-specific incentives may be announced, “broad-based relief on essential items and petroleum products appears limited despite changing market dynamics arising from the Middle East conflict.” SVP FPCCI said prospects for strong industrial growth remain constrained under the current IMF programme, as fiscal consolidation and revenue generation continue to be key priorities. CEO Top Line Securities Mohammad Sohail said “under the IMF programme, it looks difficult that the government can provide any major relief.” Increase in wages, lower tax rate on people earning less and more direct subsidies may help to some extent, he said, adding that “major relief can only come through diesel and petrol prices, which are affected by the Middle East war.” President Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Rehan Hanif, while commenting on the possibility of relief for the salaried class in the upcoming Federal Budget, stated that meaningful and sustainable relief can only be achieved if the government shifts its entire focus towards broadening the tax base instead of further burdening the existing taxpayers, including the salaried class. The salaried class has become one of the most heavily taxed segments of society despite having no opportunity to conceal income, as taxes are deducted at source. He cautioned against any increase in the GST, warning that even a one-percentage-point increase could trigger a fresh wave of inflation, raise the cost of doing business, increase production costs, and further diminish the purchasing power of consumers, particularly low- and middle-income groups. President KCCI said, “the revenue required for providing relief to the common man can be generated through plugging leakages and eliminating tax distortions rather than imposing additional taxes.” The government can still provide meaningful relief to the public by rationalising indirect taxes, reducing unnecessary duties on essential commodities, curbing inefficiencies in the supply chain, and ensuring that any benefit arising from lower international commodity prices is promptly passed on to consumers, the KCCI chief said. Inflation can be effectively controlled through improved market oversight, reduction in transportation and energy costs, and by minimising the cascading impact of excessive taxation on the cost of goods, he said, urging the government to refrain from imposing additional petroleum levies or other indirect charges that unnecessarily inflate fuel costs. President Karachi Wholesalers Grocers Association (KWGA), Rauf Ibrahim, said the government is unlikely to provide any big relief to the consumers in the shape of GST reduction or other taxes on various commodities due to the IMF’s pressure to increase tax collection, while the economy is already under pressure due to stagnant exports and rising imports. Rising prices A general price survey before the previous and current federal budgets reveals a steep rise in wheat and flour varieties despite the arrival of Sindh and Punjab crops in March/April. As per data from the Sensitive Price Index ending June 4, 2026, versus June 4, 2025, a 10kg wheat bag is now available at Rs 1,095 versus Rs653, resulting in a price hike for various roti varieties by Rs2 to Rs10 per piece. Sindh Minister for Food Makhdoom Mehboob Uz Zaman, on June 2, 2026, took notice of the increase in bread and flour prices in different parts of Sindh and directed the Sindh Food Department and concerned district administrations to submit a detailed report on flour prices, wheat stock positions, supply chain issues, and any possible hoarding or profiteering in the market. He said Sindh has produced a bumper wheat crop this year, and there is no justification for creating panic in the market. Similarly, the prices of beef with bones and mutton have risen to Rs1,000–1,550 and Rs1,800–2,900 per kg, respectively, from Rs800–1,400 and Rs1,600–2,450 per kg, while exports of meat and meat preparations to the Middle East and other regions continue amid the ongoing conflict in the region. Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 8th, 2026
Despite headwinds from the current administration, automakers continue to release well-equipped EVs with bigger battery packs and increasingly faster charging speeds. For those who want to travel further between plugging in, the future is still bright, just slightly tinted. But there haven't been many sedans starting around or below $50,000, as crossover SUVs have largely […]
Measles in the US, a cholera outbreak in the DRC, TB patient registration drops in Cambodia, Kenya, and Mozambique and closer to home, HIV outbreaks in children have all been linked to what doctors have warned are cuts to programmes and disastrous policy changes. Global funding has shrunk for healthcare across countries that need it the most which is why experts in Pakistan are really getting worried. The effects are immediately clear on the ground. In the busy streets of Lyari, Karachi, Amna Sualeh once navigated confidently through her community as a health worker with the Greenstar Social Marketing’s Sitara Baji (star sister) programme. Women trusted her to provide affordable intrauterine devices (IUDs), counselling on how to space out their children, and basic reproductive health services. “Before, with donor support, we could perform IUD insertions for just Rs500,” she says. “Now it costs up to Rs10,000 in private clinics. Many simply can’t afford it anymore.” Her clients, mostly working-class mothers, have begun skipping visits or turning to unsafe alternatives. As Pakistan’s macroeconomic crisis stretches out, many women have stopped coming altogether as their incomes have shrunk. This refrain is repeated across the provinces as overseas development assistance, once an indispensable backbone of the country’s public health system, contracts sharply. While not a principal focus of the global conversation on the impact of the Great Aid Recession, Pakistan enters the second quarter of the 21st century with its health system already stretched thin. It spends just 0.9 per cent of its GDP on public health, far below the WHO’s 5pc benchmark for universal health coverage. Life expectancy is 67.3 years, which is four years below the South Asian average, and conversely, infant and maternal mortality remain stubbornly high at 50.1 deaths per 1,000 live births and 155 deaths per 100,000 live births, respectively, more than double the rates of neighbours such as Bangladesh and Nepal. These outcomes reflect chronic underinvestment, rigid budgetary structures, and a system that has long relied on overseas technical and financial assistance for crucial health functions that domestic resources have not historically covered. For years, overseas development assistance, including both on-budget funds that flowed through government budgets and off-budget funds directed to NGOs, helped bridge key gaps in the system. While it comprised only a small proportion (around 1pc) of public health spending, much of this assistance was for crucial system functions that have historically been underserved in government budgets and policy. This is particularly true for funding from Global Health Initiatives (GHIs), specialised international financing mechanisms that support priority health programmes around the world, through organisations such as the Global Fund for TB, AIDS and Malaria and Gavi. In Pakistan, this support included the less visible aspects of health, such as supply chain logistics, cold chain management and storage, commodity procurement, monitoring support, and technical capacity building across key programmes like mother and child health, family planning, immunisation, HIV-AIDS, malaria and TB. As laid out in a recent report by think tank Tabadlab, the unprecedented global aid retrenchment crisis that has enveloped the world since 2025 has hit many of these programmes hard. USAID’s suspension led to the closure of over 60 UNFPA-run health facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, directly disrupting care for 1.7 million people and halting HIV-AIDS programmes in Sindh that were providing life-saving medications to patients. Screengrab from Tabadlab research paper on aid cuts. This was followed by reductions in financial commitments in Pakistan from multilateral GHI donors such as Gavi and The Global Fund, as finances were redistributed across regions and priorities. Drawdowns in Gavi affected vaccination programmes caused layoffs of over 200 vaccinators in Lahore alone. A $27.2 million Global Fund reduction halved TB support in multiple provinces, cut diagnostic kit financing by 75pc, and placed treatment for over 42,000 HIV-positive patients at risk. Across the board, these cuts are eroding important nodes of the health system for which ODA had earlier provided the systemic architecture and connective tissue. Preventative healthcare’s invisible erosion Preventative health programmes—long under-prioritised in domestic health budgets and rarely accorded priority by local politicians and policymakers who tend to focus resources on visible infrastructure—have been disproportionately impacted. Organisations like the Global Fund helped develop monitoring and surveillance systems and trained thousands of frontline workers to prevent and monitor the spread of communicable diseases. Over the past year, many of these programs have been terminated. Dr Ilyas Gondal, former director general of health in Punjab, oversaw the administration of these programmes firsthand. “Preventative healthcare has not been given its due importance here,” he observes. “Donors filled critical gaps in programmes such as the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI), AIDS, Hepatitis and TB through support for training, outreach, health awareness, literature, and logistics. Now, most of that work has stopped across all of these programmes.” Dr Gondal fears that progress on coverage for vaccine-preventable diseases could be reversed if no arrangements are made for alternative financing. Ejaz Mahmood, a community health worker at Indus Hospital in Faisalabad, worked with the Global Fund-supported Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) programme, which trained 10,000 frontline workers in standard operating procedures for infection prevention across the country and developed IPC committees following the Covid-19 pandemic. He describes how most of those IPC committees have now become non-functional, and critical infection prevention training has been abandoned. “No one is there to train health workers anymore. We are already seeing needle-stick injuries rising, with over 111 such cases in Faisalabad this year, along with rising cases of HIV-AIDS and Hepatitis B.” Screengrab from Tabadlab research paper on ODA cuts on Pakistan’s health system. Some of the fallout of such crucial programmes being abandoned may already be contributing to disease outbreaks. Over the past year, Pakistan has witnessed one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region, with a 200pc rise in infections between 2010 and 2024. Recent media investigations in Punjab and Sindh uncovered multiple HIV outbreaks originating from health facilities that disproportionately affected children, with the reuse of syringes, non-screening of blood samples, and other unsafe medical and waste management practices identified as the causes. As donors that were crucial in enabling preventative interventions and programmes draw down support, the risk of such outbreaks is likely to increase, unless the funding and institutional structures for these programmes are sustained or replaced with domestic capacity and resources. Tuberculosis detection and treatment in jeopardy Pakistan ranks fifth globally in TB burden, with nearly 650,000 cases and 70,000 deaths annually; over half of cases go undetected. Provincial TB control programmes have long depended on donors for the bulk of programme funding. While provincial governments contribute brick-and-mortar infrastructure for these projects, organisations like The Global Fund financed everything from service delivery to detection and surveillance to commodity stocks. Dr Sher Afghan, director of the TB Control Programme in Balochistan, is direct about the scale of the crisis: “We currently face an 80pc funding gap.” The cuts resulted in a 50pc reduction in programme human resources. “We have had to halve monitoring and surveillance staff, postpone prevalence surveys, and capacity building programmes that were training 800 workers a year.” In resource-strapped provinces with unique geographical access challenges like Balochistan, this has made TB detection increasingly difficult. Programme administrators like Dr Afghan are concerned about the increased risk of undetected transmission. “Every TB-positive patient who is not treated spreads the disease to 12 people on average. Thus, every undiagnosed case means potentially 13 undiagnosed cases.” The Global Fund cut has also triggered a 50pc reduction in district-level monitoring and community interventions staff in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, alongside a 75pc cut in diagnostic testing kits and the elimination of capacity-building. Utilisation of USAID in Pakistan’s healthcare system Life and healthcare programmes; primary healthcare in erstwhile FATA and frontier regions; childhood and neonatal support; malaria control. Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. Babar Shigri, former programme management specialist with USAID Pakistan, observed the impact of donor withdrawal firsthand. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, USAID supported TB programmes with contact tracing, pharmaceutical products, community mobilisation and management information systems that improved detection rates. “It’s not about funding alone,” he says. “When USAID left, work slowed down overall as one of the main actors driving and coordinating advocacy was gone.” In Balochistan, Dr Sher Afghan is cautiously optimistic that the government will step up to the challenge and is working on creating budgetary space for the programme. But with the sudden shock to a system long dependent on donor-led systems, there is a risk of systemic collapse to the programme unless there is rapid action to create fiscal and institutional mechanisms for transitional planning. Family planning being priced out of access Family planning programmes have been among the hardest hit. Through off-budget ODA, donors like USAID supported access by underwriting everything from supply chains to capacity building for large non-governmental family planning providers such as Greenstar Social Marketing and Rahnuma FPAP. When funding evaporated, the effects were immediate. Dr Syed Azizur Rab, CEO of Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan, describes a donor-supported network that enabled underserved rural and working-class communities to access contraceptives and SRH services nationwide. “Donor support covered functions ranging from commodity subsidies, training, and logistics to community outreach and monitoring,” he explains. With that support gone, clinics have had to raise fees to cover costs and scaled back services. Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. Access to contraceptives, particularly long-acting ones like IUCDs and implants has been severely affected. According to Dr Rab, due to a lack of domestic production and rising costs of imports, “without donor subsidies, implants and IUCDs in private are simply commercially non-viable.” This effect has been compounded by increased taxes on contraceptives by the government as a revenue measure, further pricing them out of reach amid a prolonged inflationary crisis. Greenstar-affiliated clinicians such as Amna Sualeh now watch clients weigh the increased cost of an IUCD against tighter household budgets. Many are now forgoing modern contraceptive methods altogether and having unintended pregnancies as a result. In Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Noreen Nasir, a lady health visitor and midwife with over two decades of experience, worked for years as a family planning provider with USAID’s now-terminated Building Healthier Families programme. The project supported training and diagnostics, IUCDs, injections and implants for women in working-class neighbourhoods. “We used to be able to provide these commodities and services at a very minimal cost because of donor support,” she says. “Now we have to charge for them and face frequent shortages of implants and injections. At times, I pay for delivery kits out of my own pocket because the client can’t afford them and the delivery would be riskier otherwise.” As a result of the loss of support, she says, increasing numbers of women are turning to unqualified providers and stocks of key family planning products have fallen short. According to Noreen, the loss of access to affordable natal and post-natal care is also affecting infant nutrition, with reduced breastfeeding rates and rising underweight deliveries in the community she serves. Rahnuma FPAP, one of the country’s largest reproductive health networks, has closed dozens of centres. District Programme Manager Farrukh Bashir is pessimistic in his assessment: “When the funding stopped, all project beneficiaries lost access, and we had to close all donor-supported clinics. In facilities where we used to have three doctors, we now have just one. Doctor-client ratios have worsened across the board, and thousands of women from working-class communities have lost reliable sexual and reproductive health care.” Mother and child health fragile gains at risk The cuts have also severely impacted mother and child health programs and services in a country that has long had some of the worst maternal, neonatal and child health outcomes in Asia. Donor financing for these programmes was critical in reducing maternal mortality across the country (from 276 per 100,000 births in 2006 to 155 by 2024). ODA for it was particularly important for remote and marginalised regions of provinces such as Balochistan, where access to facility-based maternal and child healthcare is limited amid resource and geographical access challenges. Community health worker Shazia Ahmad worked with the EU-ECHO project, which helped upgrade basic health units and hospitals in underserved districts, and provided delivery kits, folic acid, nutrition advice, breastfeeding support and health awareness sessions. “The project was very well received in the communities, and we registered over 100,000 women. We were conducting health screenings for mothers and children while also providing nutrition supplements in districts with the highest malnutrition rates in the country.” Screengrab from PIDE research paper on foreign aid, donors and consultants. But with the termination of the project, medicines and services have been halved, and more layoffs are planned. Shazia worries about reversing the substantive gains they had made in rural communities in Balochistan. “The project was very popular with communities, and we were already seeing genuine behavioural change. Now all that work is at risk, and we are unable to follow up on the healthcare needs we had identified.” In a Rahnuma clinic in a working-class neighbourhood in Faisalabad, Punjab, Dr Amna Ehsan once operated under a “no refusal” policy with low charges for marginalised women. Donor funds allowed subsidised medicines and gynaecological OPD services. Now services are being privatised, and fees are rising. “We had very low charges and could provide low-cost medicines which were affordable for the marginalised communities we work in,” she says. Patient volumes, faced with increased fees for services and medicines, have slowed to a trickle. Systemic vulnerabilities and the transition challenge These individual stories of the struggles of health workers and administrators in the face of ODA cuts illustrate the broader structural problems documented in recent analyses of Pakistan’s health system and financing. As is clear, the impact is not just fiscal but functional. ODA, particularly off-budget flows through Global Health Initiatives, were critical for crucial health system functions that public budgets cover only partially or not at all. Bilateral cuts such as the USAID suspension have produced “cliff-edge” disruptions—abrupt programme discontinuities without transitional periods or buffers. Multilateral financing reductions have eroded the infrastructure of vertical disease programmes, including for commodities, diagnostics, surveillance and field operations. Commodity supply chains are particularly vulnerable. Donors handled pooled procurement that secured steep discounts on vaccines, TB drugs and diagnostics. As things stand, domestic systems lack the fiscal flexibility, technical capacity and regulatory agility to absorb these functions quickly. Further, technical assistance withdrawal is eroding surveillance, monitoring, data systems and planning capacity. The result is not total collapse or catastrophe but precise ruptures: stockouts, shortages, laid-off outreach workers, broken referral chains and rising exposure to out-of-pocket costs that can push families deeper into poverty and raise the underappreciated risk of disease outbreaks. While the risks are very real, the current moment also presents an opportunity for the kind of structural change that Pakistan’s health system has long needed. However, the government’s response must move beyond emergency and ad-hoc plugging of gaps and outbreak controls towards transition planning. If governments demonstrate adequate initiative and come together to coordinate, assess and fill these financing gaps, we can secure and build on the fragile health gains of recent years. At Greenstar, Dr Azizur Rab sees this moment as a reform opportunity that could build on what already exists: “The federal and provincial governments will have to look at the models already created with donor money and scale them up. However, this requires government ownership and political will.” If Pakistan seizes the crisis as a catalyst for functional transition—from donor dependence to resilience and sustainability—it can build a fully domestically financed health system capable of protecting the most vulnerable while also preventing outbreaks and creating effective local referral systems and commodity supply chains. The choice, and the cost of inaction, will be measured in lives and in the hard-won public health gains now hanging in the balance.