ISLAMABAD: The management of the National Bank of Pakistan has decided to wind up its regional office in Gilgit after revelation of a fraudulent loan scam involving millions of rupees. An order issued by the NBP says that Gilgit has been reverted to the status of ‘sub-region’ under the bank’s federal capital region.The vice-president of regional office, Malik Mohammad Issa Khan, has been appointed recovery officer for the sub-region. The bank had launched an investigation into withdrawal of Rs50 million by a man using the name of the Pak-China Sust Port Company and forging signatures of four members of the company’s board of directors in loan documents. He had also pledged collateral that did not exist. The investigation, sources said, was also to look into alleged audit lapses. According to the sources, loans of Rs880 million were sanctioned in the region on ‘fake or vague’ collaterals. The total amount of loan disbursed by the NBP in the region was around Rs1 billion. Meanwhile, chie...

ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) here on Tuesday exempted from withholding tax on import of goods by HUB Power Company Limited, its contractors or sub-contractors for the execution of power project. According to S.R.O.129(I)/2009 issued here in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 53 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 (XLIX of 2001), the Federal Government is pleased to direct that the following further amendment shall be made in the Second Schedule to the said Ordinance, namely:- In the aforesaid Schedule, in Part IV, after clause (69), the following new clause shall be added, namely:- “(70) The provisions of section 148, regarding withholding tax on imports, shall not apply in respect of goods or classes of goods for the execution of contract, imported by contractors and sub-contractors engaged in the execution of power project under the agreement between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and HUB Power Company Limited.” (DT Report)

Small shareholders, who had taken most of the beating during last year's stock exchange crisis, continue to live on hopes that some day their problems would be alleviated. They have been caught up in a quagmire following uncertainties. Since huge volume of shares of sub-account holders are blocked and cannot be sold in the falling market, causing disastrous financial losses, they have suggested to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Central Depository Company of Pakistan (CDC) to improve the system, whereby sub-account holders would be secured. According to the suffering shareholders, since the enforcement of CDC, the issuance of share certificates has been discontinued. The investors in joint stock companies have option either to open an investor account with CDC or to keep account with members of stock exchange. Small and medium investors prefer to keep account with members due to recurrent payments to CDC and hassle of issuing and delivering cheques aft...

Investors went for profit-taking at the Karachi stock market as the previous bullish trends have made the share prices of most of the scrips attractive, analysts said on Monday. They said that despite opening in the green zone at the start of the trading session, the 100-share index failed to maintain its upward momentum. The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index shed 23.69 points to close at 5,573.48 points as compared to 5,597.44 points traded in the previous session. The KSE 30 index also shed 3.95 points and closed at 5,630.83 points as compared with 5,634.78 points of the previous session. KMI 30 index also shed 132.64 points and closed at 7,268.23 points as against 7,400.87 points of the previous session. The market turnover decreased by 5.27 percent and traded 174.05 million shares as compared to previous session’s 183.74 million shares. The overall market capitalisation fell 0.51 percent to close at Rs 1.755 trillion as against Rs 1.764 trillion traded in the previous se...

By Dilawar Hussain KARACHI, Feb 8: The stakeholders in the stock market who attended a meeting on Saturday to deliberate on the accounting treatment of decline in fair value of “available for sale investments” in quoted companies held the consensus view that the regulator be asked to suspend the implementation of International Accounting Standard (IAS) 39 for one year, several participants of the meeting confirmed on Sunday. The meeting called by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) was held between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP) and an entire spectrum of stakeholders. Those included about 30 representatives of Pakistan Bankers’ Association; Investment Banks Association; Insurance Companies Association; Leasing Companies Association; the Stock Exchange and two former heads of KSE. Stock broker-turned industrialist Arif Habib, who was among the participants, affirmed that there was no difference of opinion on that account. And chairman of ...

KARACHI: The Karachi stock market continued to witness a bullish trading session on the last day of the trading week Friday as aggressive buying by NIT State Enterprise Fund boosted investors’ confidence and they took fresh positions in oil, banks and insurance scrips. The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100-share index gained 63.19 points to close at 5,597.44 points as compared to 5,534.25 points traded in the previous session. The KSE 30 index also increased by 140.74 points and closed at 5,634.78 points as compared with 5,494.04 points of the previous session. The KMI 30 index was up by 77.25 points to close at 7,400.87 points as against 7,323.62 points of the previous session. The market turnover decreased by 10.61 percent and traded 183.74 million shares as compared to previous session’s 205.56 million shares. However, the overall market capitalisation increased by 1.03 percent and closed at Rs 1.764 trillion as compared with Rs 1.746 trillion traded in the previous session. Out of 2...

Gul Ahmed Textile Mills announced upgrading its IP Telephony (IPT) voice and security infrastructure besides unifying communications system to raise service standards, improve employee collaboration and enhance operational efficiencies. According to a press release Thursday, Gul Ahmed improves collaboration with Cisco Unified Communications System and it deploys 1,900 Cisco Unified IP Devices. The network is imperative to the functioning of Gul Ahmed, seamlessly connecting toll-free extension dialing between employees across all units, including a single operator to guide all incoming and outgoing call traffic, to and from all units. Deputy Manager IT Infrastructure and Converged Communications Rashid Ghazanfar said it was decided that the upgradation would be done in two phases. Call Manager, 7825 servers will be replaced with the more powerful 7835s, Voice Gateways, 2620s will be replaced by 2821s, and Cisco PIX 500 Firewalls by ASA 5520s in the first phase. The next phase will envis...