Profit E-Magazine Issue 356

How the courts hold back financial justice

The declining returns to emigration

There’s big money in global tech exhibitions. There’s also big corruption

Pakistan’s Future Food Security Tied to Strategic Palm Oil Partnerships

Classified: Govt looking for Digital Czars to rule your life

Pace Pakistan board approves major restructuring

Ghazi’s

Eye on the sky: The race to connect Pakistan’s forgotten corners

Publishing Editor: Babar Nizami - Editor Multimedia: Umar Aziz Khan - Senior Editor: Abdullah Niazi

Editorial Consultant: Ahtasam Ahmad - Business Reporters: Taimoor Hassan | Shahab Omer

Zain Naeem | Saneela Jawad | Nisma Riaz | Mariam Umar | Shahnawaz Ali | Ghulam Abbass

Ahmad Ahmadani | Aziz Buneri - Sub-Editor: Saddam Hussain - Video Producer: Talha Farooqi Director Marketing : Muddasir Alam - Regional Heads of Marketing: Agha Anwer (Khi) Kamal Rizvi (Lhe) | Malik Israr (Isb) - Manager Subscriptions: Irfan Farooq

Pakistan’s #1 business magazine - your go-to source for business, economic and financial news. Contact us: profit@pakistantoday.com.pk

How the courts hold back financial justice

A conviction handed down by the Sindh High Court in favour of the SECP can be considered a win as it will improve the perception of fairness in the capital markets. But the problem runs much deeper

By Zain Naeem

As Justice Ahmed Keerio announced the verdict inside a humid courtroom of the Sindh High Court last week, it marked an occasion that comes far too rarely: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) had just won a case.

Victories enjoyed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) are few and far between when it comes to the capital markets. When they do end up getting a win in their column, it is a cause of celebration, even if the decision comes decades after the SECP first gives an order.

In Pakistan, the efficacy of the SECP is a major issue. The job of the SECP, for any reader that is unfamiliar, is to make sure that fairness and transparency is achieved in the capital markets like the stock exchange. You see capital markets work with certain sets of rules. Insider trading, bad faith deals, information exchange, and withholding material information are all white collar crimes that can unfairly disadvantage some investors. The idea is that the SECP keeps a check on such activities.

Unfortunately, even though the role is well defined, the track record of the regulator has been patchy to say the least when it comes to getting convictions in the courts of the country. The way it works is that when something suspicious comes up, the SECP carries out the relevant investigations and then pursues these cases to the full extent. They contact the people involved and try to get to the bottom of the matter. If they find wrongdoing they can issue orders against individuals or organisations involved.

While the procedures followed by the SECP have their own issue, a major obstacle in implementing these orders comes from the courts. If the SECP rules against someone, they can take the SECP to court for the decision. In most countries there are arbitration laws and procedures that make this process fast. In Pakistan, stay orders and judicial lag can drag them out for decades in some cases. On top of that, a lack of judges experienced in financial crimes can further delay an already painful process. But what went on in the recent case that the SECP has won? To understand the full story, we need to go back.

It takes ages

In 1997, a young man entered the bank branches of Habib Metropolitan Bank Limited (HMB). It is November in Karachi and the man has just been hired as a junior officer at the bank. As time went

by, he was able to climb the organizational hierarchy ending up as the Assistant Vice President (AVP) handling the investments of the bank in 2014.

The job description of the new AVP was to be able to carry out the decision making on the equity investments that were being carried out by the bank.

For anyone that is unaware, a bank, like any other business, is set up to earn a profit. Where a cloth manufacturer might use cotton or raw materials to manufacture cloth and earn a profit, a bank has money as its raw material. Depositors give funds to the bank and earn interest on these deposits. The bank then has to use these funds in order to earn a return from these funds. The better the banker, the better the investments that he will make.

After investing these funds in different classes of assets, the bank will earn income or revenues on the investments that it has made. After paying back the return to the depositors, the amount left can be considered the profit being earned by the bank. This means that the higher the return the assets generate, the higher the profit. This leads to the bank investing in safe classes of assets like Government bonds which will yield a consistent return while bundling them with investments in the stock market which can lead to a higher but risky return. This is the equity function of the bank which looks to invest in the best stocks which can yield a higher return for the bank. Zakir Hussain Somji was one of the individuals who was able to make the decision regarding which stocks or companies the bank could invest in. The power this position holds is huge as he has a large amount of funds owned by the bank which can be used to invest in.

That is why the SECP also exists. A bank has enough money that any investment or divestment they make in capital markets can spike or tank a stock. That means any person with prior information of what a bank is going to do has for all intents and purposes a crystal ball that can see the future. Theoretically they could buy stocks in a company right before their bank invests in it and make a killing from the raise in stock price that takes place after their investment. That is why the SECP keeps a check on the personal investments of individuals with access to this crystal ball. The case involving Somji has to do with something similar.

The offense

According to Criminal Complaint No. 29 of 2018, the SECP charged Somji with using his position and influence to make personal gains

which disadvantaged the bank. The Complaint, filed in the Special Court (Offences in Banks) Sindh, stated that there was a breach of Section 128 of Securities Act 2015 which had been breached and had to be punished under section 159 of the Securities Act 2015.

Section 128 states that no person can indulge in insider trading and any contravention of its rule shall be considered an offence. The definition of insider trading covers a vast region as many different types of trading can be seen as being insider trading. Fundamentally, insider trading is supposed to encompass trading where an individual has information available with him that is not available to the whole market. Based on using this information, he can make an investment decision which will benefit him while the remaining market remains oblivious.

In order to prohibit insider trading, SECP defines it as any transaction that is conducted on information that is only available to a select group of people. This leads to asymmetric information being available in the market. The asymmetric nature means that the information is limited in terms of its availability and gives an unfair advantage that can be traded on and profit can be earned.

Inside information is defined as any information that can have an impact on the price of the share that has not been made public. This is the asymmetric nature of such information. As certain portions of the investing public have the information, the SECP is allowed to investigate such activities which create an unfair advantage.

The SECP raised the charges against the accused and asked for punishment under section 159 of the Securities Act 2015 which would have meant a jail term of maximum 3 years and a fine of three times the gains earned by the individual.

Investigation carried out

The case that was filed by the SECP revolved around the fact that the individual had carried out inside trading and used fraudulent practices which ended up making gains for him while it led to a loss to the bank. The investigation that was carried out used the KATS (Karachi Automated Trading System) data which records all the trading carried out in the stock exchange. From January 2014 to February 2016, the investigation team gathered the data that was related to the trading carried out.

The investigation was initiated after it was seen that trading activities being carried out were suspicious and there was a need to scrutinize the trade data in relation to that. Before trading was automated, brokers would

gather in a trading pit and shout buy or sell orders at each other. The system was crude and basic, however, it allowed the traders to recognize who was trading with each other. With the inculcation of automated trading, this aspect went away as buyers and sellers had no knowledge who the counter party was. This led to trading being carried out on anonymous terms as the interface changed from faces to computer monitors.

With the advent of technology, it became virtually impossible to carry out trades between buyers and sellers on a consistent basis.

This basic understanding was the reason that the activities of Somji were recognised as a breach. In a period of two years, the SECP saw that the bank and Somji’s personal account matched trades around 173 times. The chances of this happening are astronomically impossible.

The probability of the same accounts trading with each other was very low which showed that there was some influence of management being carried out to make this possible. This was already a breach of the code set out by the SECP. In addition to that, Habib Metro had also restricted its employees from carrying out trading in their personal accounts which was also being violated.

In terms of shares being traded, the investigation found out that out of 11,795,100 shares of different companies bought by Somji, around 1,230,900 were bought from Habib Metro which was more than 10% of purchases. On the other hand, Somji sold 11,836,600 shares of different companies from which 4,915,200 were sold to Habib Metro. This accounts for 41.52% of the shares sold.

Inside trading was being carried out by front running the bank. Bought from market and sold to HMB or bought from HMB and then sold in the market. The profit earned was around Rs 28 lakhs.

Front running and impact on the market

Even though the charges levelled by the SECP seem to be concerning inside trading, the sophistication level of the offence was much lower than the one that insider trading entails. When insider trading is mentioned, the picture that comes to mind is surreptitious information being exchanged in hush whispers that leads to trading being carried out.

The inside trading that was being carried out was based on the sole element that Somji had a large amount of funds that he could use to invest. With such a large amount of finances, Somji could buy the shares of a company and lead to an increase in the share price by carrying out a buying in the specific

share. Similarly, once he decided to sell his position, the fall in price could be substantial based on the value of trade that was to be carried out.

Having this power, the SECP claimed Somji started to use front running in order to make personal gains for himself. Before he would carry out a large purchase, he had the information that the buying was to be carried out. Using this information, he would buy the shares in his personal account beforehand. Once the share price would increase, he would either sell the shares to the bank or back into the market at a higher price.

Similarly, when he was about to sell the shares of the bank in the market, he would sell the shares in his personal account before the bank was going to do so. He would sell them at a higher price before the bank would and end up selling at a higher price. This all might seem like a victimless crime, however, he was actually breaching a fiduciary duty that he had. Rather than thinking of the bank first, he was looking to make a personal gain. Somji should have executed the trades for the bank first rather than trading for himself. As an officer of the bank, he was not only trading in violation of the policies but also earning personal gain.

The defense presents its own case

In response to the allegations made, the defense had certain arguments on their own part. First of all, they claimed that there was no money trail in relation to the Rs 28 lakhs that was being claimed by the prosecution. The prosecution had failed to substantiate the gain that was earned. The defense also contended that the account that was being used for trading was a joint account between Somji and Shayan Ahmed. While investigation was carried out against Somji, no such action was taken against Shayan Ahmed.

In the same line, the bank account that was used for trading was a joint account with Farhan Ahmed who was also not investigated by the SECP.

The defense also contended that the trading activities that were being carried out by the bank were being approved by Farhan Aslam who was the superior of Somji at the bank while the head of department, Intikhab Hussain, also gave the approvals while the SECP did not make any of these individuals part of the investigation. In response to the investigation, the accused was made the Area Compliance Officer and the bank did not fire him after the alleged offence came to light.

The court has its own word

After the case came in front of the court, it had to consider both sides of the arguments being made by the SECP and the accused. The court boiled down the whole case to four points. First of all, it tried to prove if Somji had the power to place the orders and did he earn gains from these trades? Secondly, it tried to see if any offence had been committed and lastly what the final decision of the case should be.

The court gave a detailed analysis in regards to the points that were in front of it.

The court admitted on record that the accused admitted he had the power to place the orders and also admitted that matching of orders on such a consistent basis was highly unlikely. Use of KATS meant that trading was supposed to be anonymous which was not being seen in this case. One of the witnesses of the case was the Chief Compliance Officer of Habib Metro who provided the trade data, disclosed the bank’s investments processes, the team responsible for the equity decision making and the process of decision making in the investments.

One of the persons named was the accused. When the witness was deposed, he stated that the accused confessed his guilt to the superiors, however, the confession could not be admitted into court as it was considered as being extra judicial in its nature.

When this witness was cross examined by the defense, he contended that the accused had been made the Area Compliance Officer by the bank, however, this was after the bank had carried out its own investigation and had terminated him in June of 2017. The investigation put the blame squarely on Somji which led to his termination in the equity department.

In regards to the defense’s contention that only Somji was investigated, phone recordings had been obtained which showed that only the accused was placing the orders on behalf of the bank. In regards to the trading account being joint in nature, the witness stated that all the trading activity was linked to the CNIC of the accused which meant only he was responsible for the trading being carried out in his personal account.

The fact that the bank and its compliance was accepting all the trades being carried out by Somji was due to the fact that he was only showing them the trades that were being carried out on behalf of the bank and his personal trades were not being disclosed. These trades were not even allowed to be carried out in the first place.

The defense never questioned the trade

data that had been compiled which pointed towards the fact that it was correct and could not be contended.

The decision and punishment

After considering both sides of the argument, the court finally passed its judgement as it found Somji guilty of the breach that he had carried out. The court punished Somji under section 159 of the Securities Act 2015 which allowed him to be punished up to three years and fined for the offence. The court found Somji guilty of breaching Section 128 and handed down a fine of Rs 8,599,938 which was three times the gain that he had earned.

In terms of passing a jail sentence, the court felt that the case had been ongoing since 2017 and that the accused had suffered mental anguish due to the case. In light of this, he was given no jail time and only a monetary fine. Still, under section 162 of the Securities Act 2015, the court stated that it could recover the fine within seven days. If the fine had not been paid, the convicted could be remanded in jail till the amount had been paid.

As the court is dismissed and the convicted contemplates his fate and future, the decision can be considered a landmark decision for the capital markets of the country. The country has been marred by countless stock market meltdowns in the past which have seen the guilty not being punished and made an example out of. When Somji was carrying out these offences, there might have been hubris at play which allowed him to act in the way he did. The damage is that participants keep breaching the rules and are never punished while the public trust starts to decay. This can be considered a small notch of victory for the regulator as they have been able to get a conviction on its record. Hopefully this will be the first of many such cases going forward

On the heels of the judgment the Chairman of SECP, Mr Akif Saeed, stated that the judgment will boost investor confidence in Pakistan’s capital markets and, in turn, facilitate capital formation. He also expressed hope that the ruling will set a precedent for pending cases and ongoing inquiries into insider trading and market manipulation.

Everyone loses

Alot of this story has been details of the court case in question. Over here, we need to make a very important clarification: the case in question could be appealed further by the accused if he wants to prove his innocence. Of course, as the court noted, going through a seven year trial is a

ridiculous and painful process. In Pakistan, the judicial system is so sluggish and mind boggling that going through the process is punishment enough, as the court has noted.

The figure given of Rs 28 lakhs is also not a very large one, and it took seven years to get to this decision. The courts are a pain both for the SECP and those accused. And this is a case that has been decided relatively quickly. Back in November 2024, the Islamabad High Court upheld an order of the SECP 24 years after it was first issued.

This was a case that originated in 2000. In the 90s and the early 2000s, the capital markets of Pakistan were like the Wild West. There was little that existed in terms of rules and regulations and there was a blase attitude towards having a formalized manner of trading. Brokers were not mandated to ask the source of financing for the client, trading could be carried out without any sort of uniform account opening and custody of shares was mostly kept by the brokers rather than giving them over to the clients.

In order to place an order with the broker, the client would contact their agent and place a trade with them. These agents are people who have been hired by the brokerage house and act as a liaison between the company and the client. The client would contact the agent and ask them to place a trade. Any trust the client had in the brokerage house was based on his relationship with the agent and the agent would be the only point of contact. As the controls were not stringent, the agent could buy the shares for the client and place them in their own account rather than being mandated to deposit them in the client’s account. This is where the story of this case starts.

Much of this has changed since.

Accounts are only opened after a thorough Know Your Client (KYC) procedure has been carried out. Brokers need to record the orders being placed with them by the client and the shares of the clients are deposited with the Central Depository Company (CDC) once they are bought or sold. Any movement in these shares is communicated to the clients on that day and, in case they feel something untoward has happened, they can report this discrepancy to the relevant authorities.

While the SECP has caught up in some ways, our court system remains as paralysed as it was decades ago. An overflow of cases, a lack of technically trained judges and lawyers, and corrupt practices mean that neither the SECP, nor any defendant or complainant acting against them can look forward to anything but an arduous process. Without judicial reform, cases like this will continue to languish, and justice will be delivered late if it ever is. And we’re pretty sure there is a very famous saying about what it means when justice is delayed. n

The returnsdeclining to emigration

For decades, Pakistanis have defined success as getting out. But the cost have been going up, and the returns have been declining. At what point does it stop making sense?

By Farooq Tirmizi

We will give you the punchline quickly for those of you who will click on the headline but will not be able to read beyond the paywall since you do not want to pay: if you – like most Pakistanis – still believe that professional success means first and foremost being able to get out of the country, here is what you should know about the outside world.

• America is a tremendously rich country and will make you rich if you can somehow make it there, but is closed to the outside world for the foreseeable future.

• Canada and Australia are less lucrative, but easier to get to and still worth considering.

• The Middle Eastern countries are even easier to get to, will yield more financial wealth for you in the long run, are closer to home, but are not a permanent escape, since they will never give you citizenship (fine if you want to move back home).

• Migration to Europe, dear reader, is an objectively stupid decision in the long run, even if it seems easier to accomplish in the me-

dium term. All those people going to masters programs in Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the UK? Making bad, uninformed choices.

Now that we have gotten the most provocative statements out of the way, let us explain what this article is about: it is a story of how Pakistanis have defined success, why it was defined that way, and why that definition needs to be revisited in light of recent trends in the relative economic and demographic health of countries around the world.

Emigration as economic success

The region that now constitutes Pakistan has been poorer than Europe for much of the past 200 years, but since about the 1860s onwards, has also had a small elite that was connected to Europe, and then later North America in a manner sufficiently close enough that they knew exactly how far behind Pakistan is compared to the most advanced countries in the world.

That resulted in a culture of elite longing for a life at the cutting edge of human economic progress, which meant a desire to move outside the country. In other words, there has never been a time in Pakistani economic history when there was not a substantial portion of its elite that wished it lived in London (and later, New York and Dubai).

The culture of an elite has a way of percolating down to lower strata of society, and this particular desire is no different. When a young high school student in Pakistan imagines a bright future for themselves, they imagine themselves outside the country, not inside it.

Migration, in short, is the very definition of having “made it”.

For a long time, this has made economic sense. Opportunity within the country was limited, the wage differential between what was available inside Pakistan and outside Pakistan was large, and for some countries over some decades, was actually growing: meaning Pakistan was actually getting poorer relative

to some European countries for the first few decades of its history.If you could get to North America, Europe, or the Middle East, there was absolutely no question that you would be economically better off than had you stayed inside Pakistan. Any family that could send a son or daughter abroad did so.

Here is an example of how absolute the superiority of migration is in the Pakistani mind. If a person is thinking about switching jobs and interviewing at different places, they will actively seek to hide it from their employer, and most of their colleagues. If, however, that same person is applying for immigration to another country, they will feel completely free to discuss it with anyone at the company they work at, even though, from a company’s perspective, both events involve an employee leaving the company.

And the viability of migration for Pakistanis has become available to a larger and larger swathe of the Pakistani population over the past several decades. Given the fact that immigration can take many different pathways, it can be hard to quantify just how much easier it has gotten. But one way would be through the use of some anecdotes from my family history.

In 1983, my parents went to London for their honeymoon. The ticket cost them about $1,000 at the time – unadjusted for inflation. In that year, that amount was equal to twice the per capita GDP of Pakistan. Indeed, so small a percentage of the Pakistani population could afford to even reach the UK that my parents were able to go there without a visa.

(For a long time, visas were not considered necessary because the thing that kept large, uncontrolled waves of migrants at bay from developed countries was simply the cost of getting there. The UK imposed its visa requirement on visitors from Pakistan in 1986. Prior to that, all you needed to travel to the UK was your Pakistani passport.)

By 1990, when my family was moving to the United States for one year, the ticket we bought cost around $1,500 – again, unadjusted for inflation. That amount was about 2.5 times

Pakistan’s per capita GDP, though the destination was different and farther away.

By the time I went to the US for college in 2004, the amount of money it took was roughly the same – about $1,400 for a roundtrip ticket to the United States east coast – but the ratio was different: about 1.67 times per capita GDP. By the time I left for the US again for graduate school in 2013, the ticket price was just $1,100 (not adjusted for inflation), and it was 0.8 times the per capita GDP of Pakistan that year.

The above example, while not very scientific, does lay out a simple fact: a larger and larger percentage of the Pakistani population can conceive of traveling outside the country, which is why a larger and larger share of Pakistanis participate in the conversation about wanting to move outside the country, which in turn reinforces the belief that it must be a good idea to move outside the country.

When a belief is that widespread, and that absolute, it is generally a good idea to periodically test it: do the underlying facts still support this belief?

As we stated at the outset of this article, the answer depends on which part of the world you are talking about. We have bucketed the categories of countries to which Pakistanis generally migrate into four, based on shared characteristics of how desirable it still is to migrate to those countries.

Methodology

How do we determine what makes a country more attractive to migrate to? We examine what you might call the “size of the prize”: what is its per capita income, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), relative to Pakistan? We look at this data for countries across several decades.

Why several decades and not just the most current data? Because immigration is generally a multi-decade commitment, or at least starts out that way. To know the size of the prize, you should not just look at the differentials between incomes in Pakistan and your

target country, but also how that differential has changed over time so that you can at least see what the trendline is, which in turn will give you an estimate of where you can expect the differential to be by the time your children enter the workforce.

(The assumption here is that your children are likely to enter the workforce in the same country that you have migrated to, because presumably a big part of why you want to move is to give your children opportunities from the very beginning that you did not have.)

For the per capita income, adjusted for purchasing power parity, we relied on data from the World Bank, and then calculated the ratio of each country’s per capita income in PPP terms relative to Pakistan’s per capita income in PPP terms.

All of the countries we examined are richer than Pakistan, but the magnitude by which they are richer has been declining in almost all of them (meaning Pakistan’s economy and incomes are growing faster than theirs). The speed with which the ratio is declining determines the relative attractiveness of a given economy.

America: no longer open

It is difficult to describe how unfathomably rich America is relative to the rest of the world these days, and how much easier it is to get rich in America if one has talent, ambition, and focus. The broad numbers are easy to see: the United States is about 4% of the world’s population, but holds 35% of the world’s wealth, according to the 2025 Global Wealth Report by UBS, the Swiss investment bank and wealth management firm.

America’s advantage is even more concentrated when one looks at the concentration of millionaires worldwide. According to UBS’ calculations, about 60 million people around the world have a net worth exceeding $1 million, and 24 million of them live in the United States.

The American labour market is also

the most flexible in the world, which makes employers much more willing to hire, and so getting a job in America tends to be much easier than just about any country you might be able to move to. Starting a business, raising capital for that business, all are much easier in America than other parts of the world.

Small wonder then that the average net worth of an American is about twice as high as that of the average European, and incomes are significantly higher as well. Average incomes in nearly all European countries are lower than in the poorest US state, which is Mississippi.

The prize in America, in other words, is worth having.

It is not, however, available anymore to people from outside the United States, and certainly not to most people in Pakistan, even our most globally competitive talent who, in a previous generation, would have had a much smoother path to moving to the United States than they do now.

I recognize that I am perhaps not a good messenger for this information. I only recently become a US citizen, having moved to the US to start my MBA in 2013. It may sound like me telling others not to pursue what I recently acquired myself.

But I think about every single step that I took to get to this point, and frequently talk to people who are a few steps behind me in the process, and every year, every single step gets progressively harder and harder. The scholarships for foreign students – like the one I got for my MBA – are getting more and more difficult to get. The student visa I came on is harder to come by. The work visa I started my first job on is now subject to a lottery. The green card process is longer, and involves more scrutiny than before. And that was all before Donald Trump was re-elected US president and made it all harder still.

At some level, Pakistanis recognize this because when smart, ambitious young Pakistanis get together and talk about the thing that all of them talk about – how to migrate out of Pakistan – America is talked about by very few of them, and every year there

are even fewer who even consider it an option. This is despite the fact that, even adjusting for purchasing power, average incomes in America are 10.6 times higher than in Pakistan, and while Pakistan has been catching up, it has been much slower than with most other rich countries.

Canada and Australia: still (mostly) open

The next most attractive economies are Canada and Australia, at least in terms of income. GDP per capita in Australia is 9.4 times higher than Pakistan on a purchasing power parity basis, and 8.2 times higher in Canada. Both countries have clear immigration pathways that make it a relatively straightforward process to become citizens of those countries, and sometimes it is possible to apply for permanent residency directly rather than the norm in America, which involves trying to move there through other means first.

The advantage that both of these countries have over Pakistan in terms of economic opportunity has declined over the past few decades. The average Canadian made 15 times more money than the average Pakistani in 1979, adjusted for purchasing power, and the average Australian made 13.5 times more than the average Pakistani around the same time.

Clearly Pakistan has converged somewhat with these countries, but the differential is still relatively wide, and narrowing slowly enough than one can conceive of these countries as still being much richer than Pakistan even 25 years from now.

If immigration channels remain open, and per capita income differences will remain wide enough over the next two to three decades, it makes sense to pursue migration to these countries if one qualifies for the criteria they lay out in their official policies for migration.

One thing to consider: property prices in these countries have skyrocketed over the past two decades and made it much harder to

buy a home.

The Middle East: the favourite option gets even better

By far, the largest Pakistani population outside Pakistan lives in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia hosting the largest expatriate Pakistani population, followed by the United Arab Emirates. These countries are geographically close, so much cheaper and faster to get to, have currencies pegged to the US dollar, as well as very high per capita incomes.

Indeed, per capita GDP in the UAE is actually higher than that of the United States, and hence it is 14 times higher than Pakistan on a purchasing power parity basis. And while Saudi Arabia is not quite that high, at 9.7 times Pakistan’s per capita GDP, Saudi Arabia does offer considerable income arbitrage to anyone who has the ability to move there.

Both of these countries appear more attractive than Canada and Australia from a purely income differential perspective, but they, of course, famously come with some drawbacks. The most well-known of these is the policy of almost never granting citizenship to anyone who is not from there, so we have stories of families who have lived in Saudi Arabia and the UAE for decades but still do not have the right to call it home. But even beyond that, the GDP per capita number is perhaps a little less precise a measure of the relative differences in income than other countries. Part of this is the fact that a substantial portion of the GDP of both of these countries is oil revenue that goes directly to their governments, and hence inflates the actual income differences between these countries and Pakistan, especially on a PPP basis.

But the other, perhaps more concerning, difference is the fact that salary levels at many organizations in these countries depend on the citizenship of the person doing the job: people from richer countries tend to get offered higher salaries while citizens of countries like Pakistan tend to be offered lower salaries, even for com-

parable jobs. So while overall incomes may be higher, those higher incomes are not necessarily made available to Pakistanis.

There is also the volatility that comes with oil prices. When oil prices are high, incomes in these countries tend to get significantly higher, and when they are low, economic activity can slow down rapidly. And given the lack of citizenship options, those commodity price driven economic downturns can mean a sudden, unplanned relocation back home, as happened to many people following the 2008 crisis.

But since most people know that these countries are not – nor will they ever be – permanent homes, most people tend to go there psychologically prepared to move back to Pakistan. So even though the long-term trajectory of income differentials between these countries and Pakistan favours growth in Pakistan, it may still be worth it to explore moving to these countries, since any stint there is likely to be shorter, and hence requires less long-term planning.

Europe: Let it die

We now turn to the continent with which we started the discussion of income differentials: Europe. And on this front, sadly, the picture is now so unfavourable that it makes no sense to even consider moving there, especially when one factors in the fact that even wealth individuals from the continent are moving out.

The raw numbers themselves are rather telling: a Pakistani moving to the UK can expect an average purchasing power parity-adjusted income boost of just 6.9 times their Pakistani income. For Germany, the number is a bit better at 8.4 times, but for Italy, it is worse, at 6.5 times Pakistan’s per capita GDP on a purchasing power parity basis.

It gets worse if you look at the trajectory Europe has been on. Between 1950 and roughly 1980, Europe actually grew faster than Pakistan, largely on the back of the American-financed reconstruction of the continent following the end of World War II. Pakistan

started very slowly catching up between 1980 and 2000 as European growth slowed and Pakistani growth speeded up.

By starting around the year 2000, the direction has been one-way and negative: Pakistan’s per capita incomes have consistently outgrown those in the three major European economies mentioned above, and a trend that is unlikely to abate for the simple reason that these countries are, quite literally, dying.

Childlessness occurs at high rates in most European societies, which means these countries are getting older and with each passing year, fewer and fewer children are born, which in turn means the countries keep on getting even older.

Not having the right balance of young and old people means these countries are effectively waiting for the deaths of the bulk of their population. That does not mean these countries will not have rich economies for the foreseeable future, but it does mean that countries like Pakistan will consistently outgrow them. These countries have gone from being almost as rich as the United States to being not just poorer, but on track to hit parity with countries like Pakistan for the wrong reasons: because they declined too rapidly.

Conclusion

Migration remains an enormously personal decision, and this newspaper recognizes that it has negative effects for Pakistan, particularly with respect to the brain drain, so we will never encourage it. But we do recognise that it is a topic of conversation du jure among many people, so we think proving sufficient information to help empower better decision making is a role we can help play.

If you are going to disrupt your like by moving countries, and take on that multidecade commitment, your horizon for data should also be multi-decade.

Do whatever you deem best for your and your family’s needs. But for the love of all that is holy, do not move to Europe.

There’s big money in tech-exhibitions.

There’s also big conflict

Pakistan’s independent tech exhibitors are being squeezed out by a state-backed monopoly. What are they doing to

By Taimoor Hassan

If you have worked in the IT industry, chances are you have either been to or seen colleagues jet off to exhibitions in foreign countries. Exhibitions are a part and parcel of any industry. These events, usually hosted at large hotels or dedicated expo centres in both large and small cities all over the world, are essentially meant to connect buyers and sellers.

Manufacturers and sellers get a chance to display their products, show off advances, advertise themselves, and make connections that might serve them in the future. There are far more of these exhibitions and conferences than one might expect. Exhibitions in and of themselves are big business. Organising them, planning them, running logistics and marketing for them is an economy of its own. In the United States alone there are more than a million meetings and events each year, which includes conferences, conventions, and tradeshows. Add hotel stays, marketing, travel, and all kinds of other costs and it comes out to a $330 billion industry. Pakistan is by no means a global hub for exhibitions, but there are plenty of Pakistani businesses that need international exposure, and attending these conferences and getting access to them involves big money too. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than Pakistan’s tech industry. Every year, Pakistani tech companies attend countless conferences and exhibitions all across the world. To get to these exhibitions, you have to apply, buy space, set up a pavilion and have a strategy.

But for tech companies, getting to these exhibitions is simply a matter of paying a fee. Because all of the logistical work involved is done by third parties — companies that specialise in organising exhibitions for participants. In the last three years, a number of companies in the exhibition industry have popped up in Pakistan. These companies have been quietly reshaping how Pakistan shows up on the global tech map with grit, design sense, and a business model that makes international visibility possible for companies that would otherwise never afford it.

The gig is far from easy. While these companies have grown in the past three years, they have been up against government machinery. It is an uphill battle against a system that favors monopoly over merit, and connections over competence. And it begins with an organisation called the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB).

Say hello to the gatekeeper - the PSEB

Every year when the government presents the budget, one of the most ridiculous parts in a document that is generally taxing on the mental faculties

of anyone with half a brain or more is the IT budget. It allocates money to ridiculous things such as IT parks, and other strange schemes the government thinks are what promotes tech. Part of the allocations are subsidies that the government gives to promote Pakistani tech abroad. How is Pakistani tech promoted abroad? Through exhibitions of course, and the government is willing to spend money subsidising companies going to these exhibitions.

Now, this money from subsidies should ideally go to the companies organising them or to the companies directly. But the government needs an arm to do this. This is where a single publicly owned firm called the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) comes in. The board is the de facto gatekeeper for all “official” international participation by Pakistani IT companies. The way it works is that the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) works with the PSEB whereby the TDAP gives the PSEB money from the government to spend on the promotion of Pakistan’s IT industry. The PSEB does that under the Tech Destination Pakistan banner.

TDAP in coordination with P@SHA, the official representative body of Pakistan’s IT industry, chooses the international events where they think representation of Pakistan’s IT industry makes sense. The recommendations are sent to the PSEB which then finalizes the events where Pakistan’s IT industry is going to be represented by securing exclusive spaces called pavilions where IT companies from Pakistan are called to join and show to the participants the benefits of working with Pakistan’s IT industry. The said pavilions are required to be set up by companies from the private sector. These companies can offer their services and get government approval to be the “official” partner that is responsible for setting up the pavilion where Pakistan’s IT companies showcase themselves at these events. The list of these exhibitions in a year can vary and past years have seen more than 20 such exhibitions such as Gitex in Dubai and Berlin, London Tech Week and LEAP in Saudi Arabia where the government decided that it will showcase Pakistan’s IT industry.

For each event, the Pakistan Software Export Board has to choose one company from the private sector and give them the permission to set up the Pakistan pavilion. There can be as many companies that the PSEB can choose as there are events in a calendar year. Once chosen, the company would then tap into their network of IT companies and reach out to them, inviting them to join the event happening in Dubai or London or some other global destination where they are exhibiting the Pakistan pavilion. The companies first get the cost of joining the event happening in say Dubai from the organizers of the event and would then reach out to IT companies in Pakistan, quote them a cost of joining

these events including a reasonable margin for themselves.

These pavilions include booths that the company sets up for one IT company. The pavilion would include as many booths as the IT companies that agree and accept the company’s price to join the event.

If a company is unable to get the government’s approval to become its official company, also called agent, the company can bid to secure a space at the event for representation from Pakistan’s IT industry on its own. In this case, the company reaches out to the event organizer, say organizers of LEAP in Saudi Arabia, and tries to secure a space where IT companies from Pakistan can exhibit. But the company in this case is not the official nominee of the government. The official nominee of the government would bid separately from the non-government approved companies and try to secure the space for themselves with an added unique proposition that they carry the support of the government with them. With the support of the government, the equation changes. The event organizers are likely to look more favourably towards the government’s official agent instead of someone from the private sector. Both pay the same price to the event organizer but one comes with more weight whose booths would be attended by ambassadors and ministers. When the government is involved, it becomes about national liaison and not just a for-profit enterprise. Access and optics would be better for the one that has the government support.

There are monetary benefits too. According to the MoU between TDAP and the PSEB, the PSEB receives cash fromTDAP to subsidise costs for the official agent selected by the PSEB by up to 60%.

In a fair system, public funding, especially large subsidies for international marketing and export promotion, is distributed through open, competitive processes. The global standard for this is the RFP: Request for Proposals. Government agencies invite proposals from organizers, compare costs, evaluate performance, and select the best plan. It prevents corruption, creates transparency, and ensures public money is used well.

But in Pakistan’s case, no such process exists. The same agent is repeatedly handed most of the exhibition contracts, without any competition. No calls for proposals. No budget comparisons. No performance evaluations.

At the same time, there is also the perception issue. Tech companies are likely to trust the government backed organiser rather than the ones doing it without their approval. As an official of one organising company tells us, in their first year, the industry response was tepid at best. Very few companies were willing to risk joining an unrecognized platform, especially one without the safety net of government endorse-

ment. Exhibitions abroad especially in tech hubs like Dubai and Singapore are expensive and high-stakes. Why take the risk?

But over time, trust was built the hard way: through delivery. Each event was run like a startup launch. Hands-on, detail-driven, and focused on outcomes. Companies weren’t just given a booth and forgotten. They were helped with branding. Connected with investors. Introduced to buyers. Given practical, affordable options. Word spread.

Three years in, participation surged. Events like fintech festivals and startup showcases began drawing over 150 participants, a testament to the model’s success. More than a commercial enterprise, the platform became a gateway for Pakistan’s IT and tech ecosystem to be seen, engaged, and considered internationally.

Meet the agent

On paper, it looks like a success story: Pakistan’s IT industry is increasingly visible on the international stage, with local companies participating in global exhibitions from Singapore to Dubai, Istanbul to Amsterdam. On paper, it also looks that the government is promoting the IT industry at all these events when in reality it is a third party that the government gives a contract to.

Subsidies from the government cover up to 60% of the cost, allowing more businesses to represent the country abroad. It’s meant to be a support system, a way to elevate Pakistani technology into the global spotlight. But dig deeper, and a different story unfolds.

One where a single private agent, without any formal tender process or competitive bidding, controls the lion’s share of these international tech showcases. Where inflated budgets, opaque approvals, and unchecked authority turn public support into private profit. And where those actually building value independent organizers without government handouts are sidelined, blacklisted, or simply erased from the map. The agent is an individual by the name of Dawar Khan, whose companies Eventage, Event Management and Event Champ, have secured most of the exhibitions abroad to represent Pakistan’s IT industry.

This unchecked access to public funds allows the agent to inflate costs with impunity.

The government can bid to secure some space at a global exhibition, say Gitex Dubai, where they would set up booths for each tech company from Pakistan that agrees to join the event in Dubai. The government would give the contract to set up these booths to a private company like Eventage. Eventage would give a price to the PSEB for setting up one booth. Say that the company gives a price of Rs 20 lakh to the PSEB. The Rs 20 lakh covers the company’s cost of setting up the booth, branding, lighting, carpets etc with add ons like networking op-

portunities arranged by PSEB and government bodies like TDAP and the respective embassy of Pakistan. This price would also include profit of the private company which is organizing everything on behalf of the government of Pakistan. The PSEB would reduce this cost by 60%. In this case, it would come down to Rs 8 lakh. In this way, the difference of Rs 12 lakh is paid by the government and that is where the money set aside in the budget for these subsidies goes. This cost after subsidy is quoted to tech companies in Pakistan, encouraging them to join the said exhibition at an affordable cost. It is a simple enough system. However, industry insiders claim that the prices quoted to the PSEB by companies like Eventage are inflated. They claim that PSEB does not allow for competitive bidding which does not allow a fair field of competition. Estimates received by Profit claim that instead of the Rs 20 lakh, a single booth at an event like Giltex in Dubai could be organised by other companies at a cost as low as Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per booth including their profit. The difference is massive. Add to this the fact that PSEB would pay for 60% of this and the cost for tech companies to have a booth at such an event comes down to Rs 1.2 - 1.6 lakhs. This actually means that the amount set aside for the subsidy can be distributed to a lot more companies which can then go to a lot more events.

As things stand, in the past three years, Dawar Khan’s companies have organised a majority of the events that the government has been involved in. The government can give work to any of the companies out there, but Dawar Khan has been the agent for 36 events out of 51 in the last three years. That’s 70% of the exhibitions where the PSEB decided it would showcase Pakistan’s IT industry and chose Dawar to do it subsidized by the government. Keep in mind that dozens of IT companies attend these exhibitions. If say 100 companies attend Gitex Dubai, under the Dawar Khan model, Rs 8 crore are being given to Dawar to set up 100 booths. According to market sources, this Rs 8 crore covers the cost and is enough to give him a decent profit. By quoting the price at Rs 20 lakh, the agent is pocketing an extra Rs 12 lakh. Multiply this to 100 companies attending the exhibition, we are looking at Rs12 crore in unearned profits through subsidies.

Correspondence seen by this reporter confirms that events such as LEAP and Gitex that could be organized for $150,000 are routinely quoted at $700,000 by the above-mentioned companies. With the government offering a 60% subsidy, that means the state pays nearly five times more than it should. The agent pockets the difference, often taking home more than $100,000 to $400,000 in commissions per exhibition based on the size of the event, their importance and how many companies from Pakistan attend it.

Multiply that by 36 events in total that Dawar’s companies have been chosen to be the government’s official agent, the numbers become staggering. We are talking about at least $3.6 million that Dawar has possibly earned in profits if all events are small. However, that is not the case. We have created a tier-based categorisation of these events where costs and eventually subsidy amount increases as the events move up in a tier. If all events are Tier C, Dawar has pocketed $3.6 million. If all events are assumed to be Tier A, Dawar pockets $14.4 million. Stay in the middle and Dawar would have pocketed $9 million. The $9 million (Rs2.5 billion in today’s dollar rate) number is the best unbiased estimate of the amount that Dawar possibly pocketed through his companies in three years because of an unfair system. This amount is close to the entire PSEB budget of Rs3 billion in 2024-2025.

This isn’t just unfair. It’s expensive. Let’s unpack the scale of this hidden cost and how much it’s draining from the system.

Pakistan supports international exhibition participation through subsidies that cover 60% of the event costs, designed to reduce the financial burden on already rich tech companies, earning millions of dollars annually. It can be a good idea when applied fairly. But what’s happening instead is a textbook example of budget inflation and corruption.

While independent organizers manage full-featured international showcases for $150,000 or less, the monopoly agent regularly quotes $700,000 or more for similar events. And since there’s no RFP process and no mechanism to invite competitive bids, these inflated invoices are either accepted without scrutiny or through collusion.

Real money but illusionary advertising?

It gets worse. Even with the inflated prices, there are serious questions about where all of this money is being spent.

In a startling discovery, this reporter has uncovered what appear to be fabricated promotional materials for Pakistan’s IT industry events in locations like Saudi Arabia, Toronto, and Berlin. Using error-level analysis, a forensic image technique, several of the billboards and digital ads masterminded by PSEB’s ad partner, M&C Saatchi show signs of manipulation. Searches on fakeimagedetector also show anomalies in these pictures and question their authenticity. Industry sources also say that the pictures aren’t real.

The PSEB budget is roughly Rs 3 billion which it can spend on subsidies, grants, and global marketing. According to sources in the advertising industry, the rule of the thumb is

that 30% of all spend is on marketing. On these estimates, roughly Rs 90 crore is being spent on global marketing. This amount is firstly being spent on exhibitions. Secondly, there are now questions on whether the marketing actually happened or not.

The pictures that have turned out to be fake as well as ones that appear to be real also reveal that the campaigns, costing tens of crores, appear to be weak. Sources familiar with and directly working for advertising companies in Pakistan say that the campaigns appear designed for local consumption - people who see billboards and paid social ads aimed at passersbys rather than the global tech community. “It looks more like the campaign is aiming at an audience to sell them a consumer good product like a shampoo or a soap instead of an IT service.”

Profit asked M&C Saatchi MD for Pakistan Afzal Hussain on the inauthenticity of the pictures. He answered without giving any rational explanation for why the pictures appeared fake. Profit also asked Hussain to provide a third party audit report of the advertising campaigns for the government. Profit couldn’t reach out to PSEB to share these findings and ask for an audit report from them but Hussain said that he was meeting PSEB officials on Friday after which he would be able to comment on the effectiveness of the campaign. Later, when the pictures were shared, Hussain said that it was unlikely even after his meeting with the PSEB that he could share anything with Profit because confidentiality clauses with the client restricted them from sharing any details.

Our understanding is that PSEB officials would have received our queries on the questionable authenticity of their advertising campaign through Saatchi. We will include their version if they choose to give any response.

Visa support as leverage

Beyond inflated costs, there’s another, subtler form of control: visas. International exhibitions require participants to travel and that means securing business visas. For events officially endorsed by the government, visa facilitation is often coordinated directly through embassies. Participants receive priority processing, letters of support, and diplomatic endorsement. But for independently run events, no matter how credible, this support is denied.

This gives the official agent an unspoken but powerful tool: exclusivity by restriction for others. Companies may want to join better, cheaper, more impactful exhibitions, but hesitate because visa success isn’t guaranteed. For startups and SMEs, that uncertainty is often enough to walk away.

This isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening. In

one case, a Pakistani exhibition organizer had to refund over one crore rupees, nearly $35,000, out of pocket after visa refusals derailed participation. Meanwhile, the official agent continues to run government-backed events that deliver poorer results, face no scrutiny, and still retain monopoly control.

In some cases, independent success has led to outright theft. One organizer, after successfully running an exhibition for two years, was abruptly shut out. The name, target audience, even the format all copied and relaunched by the government’s preferred organizer. Pressure was exerted on the exhibition organizers to cut ties with the original host. Suddenly, the event that had been built from the ground up with relationships, planning, and investment was removed from official support lists and replaced with a government-backed duplicate. This is not a competition. This is erasure.

A system designed to exclude

The problem isn’t limited to one firm or one set of events. It’s a systemic issue. The same agent is repeatedly awarded contracts. They submit “internal lists” to ministries, which become the basis for subsidies, recognition, and visa facilitation. Events that aren’t on these lists don’t exist, at least as far as the government is concerned.

There is no transparency in how events are selected, how much public money is spent, or what value is actually delivered. Audits are either ignored or never conducted. And even when credible organizers present evidence of success photos, feedback, metrics, real industry traction they are quietly removed from official records the following year. Replaced by the same agent. A WhatsApp conversation seen by this reporter showed Shahbaz Hameed, the head of business development at PSEB, actively discouraging an event organizer in Singapore to not work with a private company and instead work with the Government of Pakistan’s agent.

The possible illegality in London Tech Week 2024-25

For two consecutive years, London Tech Week was listed in PSEB’s annual reports as a key international engagement. But in the most recent cycle (2024–25), the event was conspicuously missing from the official calendar issued by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, the very authority responsible for approving such expenditures. Despite this, PSEB went ahead and poured hundreds of thousands of pounds into subsidizing and marketing the event. This was done without

the required clearance from TDAP, making the spending not just irregular but legally questionable. The government’s official agent for the event was Dawar Khan.

Despite all of this, the independent organizers persist. With a database of over 9,000 contacts, active marketing, and 10– 12 committed companies per event, they continue to prove that good work doesn’t need subsidies to survive just fairness.

They charge fees around 1.5 to 2 lakh rupees per client and focus on value, not volume. Their margins are slim but sustainable. They don’t need handouts. They need a level playing field.

If they were offered the same 60% subsidy and visa facilitation that the official agent receives, their events would be nearly free for participants, opening the door for hundreds more Pakistani companies to compete internationally.

But the system isn’t built for equity. It’s built for control.

Senior officials at the PSEB, including CEO Abu Bakar, chief marketing officer Amir Anzur and head of business development Shahbaz Hameed did not respond to Profit’s request for comments on the matter. Instead, Profit has received credible reports that the said team at the PSEB has initiated a cover up to avoid accountability. Profit also reached out to Dawar Khan but received no response.

What needs to happen

The government must issue open RFPs for all subsidized international exhibitions. Let organizers compete on cost, quality, and performance. Publish budgets. Evaluate outcomes. Make it public.

If the goal is to promote Pakistan’s tech sector, visa support should be available for all credible events, not just the ones rubber-stamped by a single gatekeeper. Every rupee spent on subsidizing exhibitions must be accounted for. Let the industry choose where to go. If one organizer consistently delivers better outcomes, they should rise and not be removed from the list.

At stake is not just money, it’s Pakistan’s global image. Every time an inflated, poorly-run exhibition is passed off as “official,” it damages the credibility of our IT sector. It makes us look unserious, unreliable, and politicized.

But there’s another way. One where value is rewarded, not connections. One where public money uplifts the industry, not a monopoly. One where the people building platforms quietly, consistently, with real results are allowed to do what they do best: help Pakistan be seen, not silenced. n

By Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries

Q. What is the global significance of palm oil today and how does CPOPC play a role in this evolving landscape?

Palm oil holds immense global significance as one of the most productive oil crops in the world due to its versatility, efficiency, and widespread use. It has become one of the key ingredients in food products, household goods,cosmetics, and biofuels . Its high yield per hectare makes it a crucial crop for meeting the needs of a growing global population while using relatively less land compared to other vegetable oils. The oil used by over 3 billion people daily, either directly (in cooking) or indirectly (in processed goods).Nations such as India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the European Union rank among the top importers, underscoring the global dependence on this vital commodity.

The Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) is playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of the global palm oil industry. Founded by Indonesia and Malaysia, who together account for over 80% of global production has now five member countries and three countries as observers. These countries collectively produce nearly 90% of the global palm oil. As such, CPOPC aims to harmonize the voices of producing nations and ensure the industry grows in a sustainable, inclusive, and equitable manner. More importantly CPOPC is seen as the face of palm oil champion in the global stage.The rising demand for palm oil has also brought increased scrutiny regarding environmental and social impacts. This is where the CPOPC plays a vital role in safeguarding the interests of palm oil producing nations by promoting sustainable production practices and supporting inclusive growth, especially for smallholders.

The Council has adopted a ‘triple-track approach’ in advancing its international agenda. First, it leverages existing palm oil platforms across member states, other producing nations, and key consuming countries to strengthen cooperation and influence. Second, the CPOPC collaborates with producers of other vegetable oils to promote a unified front on sustainability.

Third, it actively engages with United Nations platforms to reshape the global narrative on palm oil, advocating for a more balanced and science-based perspective.

CPOPC promotes and supports national certification schemes like Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) and IndonesianSustainable Palm Oil(ISPO) which uphold environmental and social responsibility in palm oil production. These standards ensure traceability, reduce deforestation, and protect workers’ rights, aligning with international sustainability expectations.Among other core task of CPOPC is to actively counter misinformation, foster international cooperation, and ensure that palm oil continues to be produced in a way that respects people’s right and protect the planet.

CPOPC also acts as a united front to respond to discriminatory trade practices, negative campaigns, and non-tariff barriers faced by palm oil in international markets. Through international meetings, policy platforms, and South-South cooperation, CPOPC strengthens collaboration among producing and consuming countries. It works to align palm oil development with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasizing food security, poverty reduction, and climate action.

Q. Can you share insights on current trends in palm oil consumption globally and what this means for

importing nations like Pakistan?

Palm oil has emerged as the most globally significant agricultural commodities due to its exceptional high yield as compared to other vegetable oils. It has become a cornerstone of global supply chains, due to its affordability and functionality making it critical for ensuring food security, especially in developing countries. Global palm oil consumption is experiencing a notable shift, particularly in Asia, which has significant implications for importing nations like Pakistan.

Asia-Pacific region’s consumption of palm oil has surged to 66 million tons in 2024, a 21% increase from the previous year. This growth was driven by rising demand in countries like India and China, where palm oil is favored for its affordability and versatility in food and industrial applications. Whereas, Pakistan also heavily relies on palm oil imports, with approximately 90% of its 3 million-tons vegetable oil requirement fulfilled through palm oil, sourced from Indonesia and Malaysia. Pakistan has imported 2.489 million tons between July 2024 andFebruary2025 recording an increase of 10%.

There are evolving dynamics to global palm oil consumption, particularly in Asia, which presents both challenges and opportunities for Pakistan. While increased demand in neighboring countries may strain supply and elevate prices, they also highlight the strategic

importance of securing stable import channels and investing in domestic production capabilities to ensure food security and economic stability. Pakistan’s domestic edible oil demand stands at 4.5 million tons per year, while local production is only around 0.5 million tons. To bridge this gap, Pakistan imports approximately 3 million tons of edible oil annually, with palm oil accounting for 2.9 million tons in 2023. This underscores the role of palm oil in ensuring food security in Pakistan.

Q. How does the palm oil supply chain work? and what value does it bring to countries like Pakistan?

The palm oil supply chain is a complex and integrated system that begins with cultivation and spans through processing, refining, logistics, and distribution, supporting various value-added industries. For importing nations like Pakistan, this supply chain offers significant economic and industrial development potential.

Pakistan as net importer of edible oil for its food security is dependent on crude or semi-refined palm oil. Numerous refineries in Pakistan can refine these products into edible form, which is widely used as cooking oil and in manufacturing value-added products like vanaspati ghee, soaps, surfactants, and personal care items. Since palm oil is affordable than other edible oils in the market, it has become a key ingredient in processed foods, supporting bakeries, snack producers, and confectionery companies.

Q. What frameworks like ISPO and MSPO ensure palm oil is sustainably produced, and how can Pakistan benefit from engaging with these mechanisms?

To ensure palm oil is produced responsibly, sustainability certifications such as the ISPO and the MSPO standards have been established by producing countries. These national certification schemes are designed to align palm oil production with internationally recognized principles of environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and economic viability. Both ISPO and MSPO promote transparency, reduce deforestation, and protect the rights and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

For a country like Pakistan, which is a major consumer and is exploring opportunities in palm oil processing and cultivation, engaging with frameworks like ISPO and MSPO can offer several advantages. By adopting or benchmarking these standards, Pakistan can enhance the sustainability and traceability of its palm oil value chain; this could open doors for technology transfer, capacity building, and

Source: Imarc Group, January 2025

stronger trade relationships with leading producer countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

Moreover, aligning with established sustainability standards would position Pakistan as a responsible player in the global palm oil landscape, attract environmentally conscious partners, and support the development of local certification systems tailored to national needs.

Q. What would you say to critics concerned about palm oil’s health effects and environmental impact?

Criticism surrounding palm oil often centers on its health implications and environmental footprint. While these concerns are not unfounded, it’s important to reframe the debate with science-based evidence and recognize the significant progress being made in sustainability across the palm oil industry.

Palm oil is frequently criticized for being high in saturated fats, but in nuanced reality palm oil is roughly 50% saturated fat, 40% monounsaturated, and 10% polyunsaturated—comparable to animal fats but with no cholesterol.Additionally, red palm oil contains tocotrienols (a form of Vitamin E) and beta-carotene, which have antioxidant properties. Numerous scientific studies have shown that moderate consumption of palm oil does not raise LDL cholesterol. In fact, it may help maintain a healthy ratio between LDL and HDL cholesterol.

On the other hand, legitimate environment concerns exist,regarding deforestation and habitat loss, particularly in Southeast Asia. Significant reforms have been initiated by the palm oil producing countries to address these issues which are;

• Many major producers and traders have adopted No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) policies, which ban

the clearing of primary forests and protect workers’ rights.

• Traceability and Certification systems have been put in place. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Certification now covers nearly 20% of global production. While advanced traceability systems and satellite monitoring are being used to track the origin of palm oil and ensure compliance. While RSPO is volunteer basis, both Malaysian and Indonesian Governments has taken pro-active steps in making MSPO and ISPO as a mandatory requirement for all palm oil industry players.

• Palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil crop, requiring 4–10 times less land than soybean, sunflower, or rapeseed oil for the same output. Globally, palm oil utilizes about 29 million hectares for cultivation while soybean more than 136 million hectares, rapeseed 44 million hectares and sunflower 30 million hectares as of 2023. When responsibly produced and consumed in moderation, palm oil is nutritionally sound and environmentally viable and can be part of a more sustainable and healthier global food system. The real solution lies not in boycotts, but in supporting sustainable production, transparency, and encouraging policy engagement.

Q. How is technology shaping the future of sustainable palm oil-from farm to frying pan to biofuel?

Technology has transformed the palm oil industry across its entire value chain from plantations to processing to end-use applications; ensuring greater sustainability, transparency, and efficiency. Lately, global expectations have risen for responsible production and climate-smart agriculture, innovative tools are

also reshaping how palm oil is grown, traded, and consumed.

Palm oil industry has started adopting various technological aids to improve the entire value chain and making palm oil more sustainable, accountable, and future-ready. Following are few examples of technologies are being used;

1) Digital traceability systems are now integral to tracking palm oil from plantation to final product. These systems use blockchain, QR codes, and integrated supply chain software to a) Map origins of fresh fruit bunches (FFB); b) Monitor custody transfers across mills, refineries, and distributors; c) Provide real-time data to regulators, buyers, and consumers. This transparency builds trust and ensures that palm oil is produced without contributing to illegal land use or deforestation.

2) Introduction of satellite imagery and remote sensing technologies allow near real-time monitoring of palm oil plantations. This helps to detect- a) Illegal land clearing or encroachment; b) Deforestation in high conservation value (HCV) areas; c) Fires and land degradation risks. These tools enforce sustainability commitments and quick response to environmental threats.

3) Digital certification and smart auditing tools are being used in palm oil certification processes to reduce bureaucracy and increase integrity. Tools such as- a) Mobile apps for field assessments; b) Digital dashboards for compliance tracking; c) AI-enabled audit systems. These help smallholders and companies to meet national and international sustainability standards more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Technology is also enabling palm oil to contribute to low-carbon energy transitions. The advanced processing techniques are improving the quality and yield of palm-based biodiesel and hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO). Currently, research is underway into second-generation biofuels that utilize palm oil waste such as empty fruit bunches and palm kernel shells to generate clean energy. These developments align with global climate goals and also diversify palm oil’s role beyond food use. By embracing above mentioned tools, the industry is striving to enhance its global image, protect the environment, and ensure long-term economic viability—truly transforming palm oil “from farm to frying pan to fuel” in a sustainable way.

Q. Beyond food-what are some industrial and non-food applications of palm oil relevant to Pakistan’s growth sectors?

While palm oil is widely recognized as a staple in the global food industry, its non-food appli-

Source: The Business Research Company, January 2025

cations play an equally critical role in powering industrial growth in emerging economies like Pakistan. These applications span across cosmetics, personal care, pharmaceuticals, and bioenergy, offering immense value-added potential for domestic industries and export diversification.

Palm-based methyl esters are a viable alternative to fossil fuels. While biodiesel adoption in Pakistan is still in its early stages, the country has ambitious renewable energy targets. Palm oil-based biodiesel could offer a cleaner energy source for industrial fleets and agricultural machinery, especially if supported through government incentives.

With proper lobbying, Pakistan can align its industrial policy with global sustainability goals while unlocking new economic opportunities.Palm oil’s non-food applications offer Pakistan a chance to deepen industrial linkages, reduce reliance on imports, and move up the global value chain. By strategically investing in oleochemical processing and fostering public-private collaboration, Pakistan can transform palm oil from a raw import into a cornerstone of industrial innovation and sustainable growth.

Q. How does CPOPC currently engage with Pakistan, and what shared interests guide this collaboration?

CPOPC engages with Pakistan through a combination of policy dialogue, trade relations, and cooperative initiatives aimed at strengthening the palm oil supply chain and fostering mutual economic interests.

In the past several ministerial-level dialogues have taken place between CPOPC member countries and Pakistani officials. These talks typically emphasize on ensuring uninterrupted palm oil supply, addressing tariff and non-tariff barriers, promoting the use of certified sustainable palm oil, strengthening bilateral relations through agro-industrial cooperation. Pakistan has also expressed interest in securing long-term supply agreements and technical support from Indonesia and Malaysia. Furthermore, CPOPC and Pakistan have explored formalizing collaboration through MOUs focused on promoting sustainable palm oil trade, capacity building and knowledge sharing as well as facilitating investment in palm oil refining and processing infrastructure.

In addition, there is ongoing engagement between private sector players in the palm oil industry producing countries and Pakistani companies. These collaborations include joint ventures in refining and downstream processing, technical partnerships to improve logistics and storage and market development for palmbased consumer products. Currently, there are a number ofIndonesian and Malaysian firms have established a presence in Pakistan through direct investments or local distribution agreements.

In short, CPOPC’s engagement with Pakistan is multifaceted, with active trade, government-level dialogues, formal agreements, and business-to-business collaboration.

Q. Why is palm oil essential to Pakistan’s food security and affordability compared to other edible oils?

Palm oil plays a crucial role in Pakistan’s food security due to its unique combination of year-round availability, cost competitiveness, and a reliable nutritional profile. As a net-importing country with limited domestic oilseed production, Pakistan depends heavily on palm oil to meet the nutritional needs of its growing population. Unlike many oilseeds that are harvested seasonally, palm oil is produced consistently throughout the year. This steady global supply allows Pakistan to maintain stable inventories, avoid seasonal price shocks and ensure consistent availability of edible oils in both urban and rural markets

Palm oil remains as the most affordable edible oil on the international market. Its high yield per hectare and efficient production makes it comparatively cheaper than alternatives like soybean, sunflower, and canola oil. Palm oil is seen as a more economically viable option for every Pakistani household, which keeps food inflation under control and a preferred choice for bulk food producers, bakeries, and street vendors. Embracing palm oil as a cornerstone of edible oil policy can help Pakistan safeguard its food system against global volatility and domestic price pressures.

Q. What are your top policy recommendations to deepen

cooperation between palm oil producers and Pakistan?

To strengthen cooperation between palm oil producers and Pakistan, a strategic, multi-dimensional policy approach is essential. CPOPC open to have dialogue with Pakistan Government to discuss on investment protection agreements, land and subsidies for palm oil refining industries as well as export incentives for value-added palm oil products. A deeper Pakistan–CPOPC partnership will require policy dialogue, targeted incentives, and mutually beneficial capacity-building initiatives. By implementing these recommendations, both partiescan secure a resilient, value-added, and sustainable palm oil partnership.

Q. Could palm oil contribute to Pakistan’s clean energy goals— especially in the biofuel space?

Emerging technologies have now enabled the conversion of palm oil and its residues into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), a game changer for countries with growing air travel needs. Palm oil is fast becoming a leading feedstock for biodiesel due to its high oil yield and chemical composition that allows efficient conversion into Palm Methyl Ester (PME). Biodiesel blends (e.g., B10, B20) are already in

use across Southeast Asia, proving their viability in both commercial and public transport sectors. Beside using palm oil waste, palm oil used cooking also becoming another important source for biodiesel. Hence, Pakistan could also craft policies to utilize its used cooking oil in achieving its clean energy goals.

Palm oil has the potential to play a strategic role in supporting Pakistan’s transition toward cleaner energy, particularly through its application in biofuels. As the country moves to meet its 2030 green energy targets under international climate commitments, palmbased fuels could offer a practical, scalable, and regionally-aligned solution. In addition, Pakistan can also position itself as a regional biofuel hub by forming strategic alliances with Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top palm oil producers. Pakistan also could engage with international agencies like ICAO and UNDP for funding and technical support.

Palm oil’s role in clean energy particularly as a feedstock for biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel offers Pakistan an opportunity to align economic pragmatism with environmental responsibility. By integrating palm-based biofuels into its national energy and transport strategies, Pakistan can take meaningful strides toward its 2030 climate goals, while also stimulating innovation, investment, and energy security. n

Classified: Govt looking for Digital Czars to rule your life

Unfortunately the Digital Nation Pakistan Bill has not been forgotten. Far from it, the government is deciding how much to pay the three people committee that will rule the Pakistani internet

By Abdullah Niazi

Perhaps it was too much to hope that the federal government would simply forget it had passed the Digital Nation Pakistan Bill earlier this year. After all, the government bludgeoned it through parliament with particular viciousness for a reason. Despite all the signs we cannot blame those among us that had hoped someone would forget the bill and they would never have to deal with it again.

The bill, which seems unassuming enough at first glance, has a giant problem tacked along with it: the current government’s deplorable record on digital freedoms. This is not the first time Profit has taken a hard line on this issue, but it is worth repeating: The single stupidest decision any Pakistani can take right now is to trust the government. Especially this particular government.

And no, we are not raising a question on the competency of the incumbent cabinet and the bureaucratic leadership working underneath them. We are also not taking a moral or

political stance in this assessment. What we are saying is far worse, far more insidious and dangerous than any of this. We are claiming that as responsible, well-informed, well-meaning members of the Pakistani electorate should not trust the intentions of this incumbent government.

Which is why the introduction of a digital ‘masterplan’ in this bill raises more questions than it answers. Now, when the concerns are still looming, the government is going full steam ahead. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday approved a search and selection committee for recommending the appointment of members of the Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) under the Digital Nation Pakistan Act.

This Digital National Authority is perhaps the most interesting and dangerous parts if this act of law. The PDA will comprise a chairperson and two members, to develop, implement, and monitor the national digital master plan. This authority will also establish a monitoring and evaluation framework for digital transformation projects. Essentially, since the Act is extensive in its scope, this committee of three will decide what Pakistan’s digital

landscape and internet look like. For now, a search committee has been formed chaired by IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja to find these three czars. But once they’ve been found, what happens next?

Not to be trusted?

By all accounts the act is a decent exercise in legislative writing. Shaza Fatima Khawaja, the minister of state for IT who is responsible for the bill, is an experienced parliamentarian with strong political pedigree and an academic inclination. The bill is forward looking and models itself on successful examples of centralised digital governance from around the world. Despite all of this, the government’s intentions for what they want to do with the bill are far from clear. The disdain with which this government has treated the internet and digital life in Pakistan has no comparison. Even though the incumbent minister, at least on the surface, lacks the smugness and audacity that has come to define this government, she has been a full and happy participant in the trampling of digital rights and freedoms.

But what exactly is this act? Perhaps nothing encapsulates the idea behind this bill more than the concept of a Digital National Identity. Modern governance has long required efficient methods to sort, register, record, and include people into some kind of database.

Technology has evolved over time and the methods to identify people have become more sophisticated, from paper archives and files to completely digital methods. In Pakistan, for example, a massive exercise was undertaken in the early 2000s under the late Dictator Pervez Musharaf, whose regime introduced NADRA and computerised data about people’s names, dates of birth, addresses, and other basic information.

Data like this is vital in the growth of any country and economy. Having it centralised in and verifiable from one place allows for the efficient functioning of government institutions. For example, NADRA played a pivotal role in identifying and helping families that were eligible for the Benazir Income Support Programme during the Gillani administration. The infrastructure from the BISP was later used for the Ehsaas Programme in Imran Khan’s government, which became a crucial lifeline for people during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Digital Nation Pakistan Bill proposes to build something similar to this, but much more sophisticated. Under the bill, every citizen of Pakistan would be granted a digital national identity. This would be a pin, a number, or some kind of an access marker that would be unique to every single individual, the same as a CNIC Number.

This digital identity would be used for everything. So it would have the same function as an ID card, and as such be used for things like marriage certificates, bank accounts, taxes etc, but would also be connected to everything else. Essentially, this digital identity will be centrally stored and linked to every aspect of governance you can think of. The FBR, SECP, State Bank, will all have access to this identity, and a person will be able to use their digital ID to do any kind of business.

If you want to open a store, get a loan, pay your taxes, apply for a birth certificate, or a driving licence you will simply do it through this digital ID. Individuals will be registered with NADRA, while legal entities and businesses will be registered with the SECP.

A digital identity of this sort is the basic building block of what is known as e-governance, a concept that has spread in many parts of the world where much of the everyday work of governance is automated and done through online platforms. Pakistan currently stands at 139 in the world when it comes to e-governance.

In theory it makes sense. This publication has in recent times repeatedly said that

Pakistan has the basic building blocks to become a thriving economy. The one block in achieving this has often been government machinery, both political and bureaucratic. A digital identity system would remove a whole lot of red tape.

The bill, which once again seems to be a bespoke and well-written piece of legislation if nothing else, says that this digital identity would be connected to government entities and public sector organisations through a “data exchange layer”. In the bill’s own words, this is an interoperable digital framework that facilitates the sharing and integration of data between government entities, businesses, and individuals.

The government’s reasoning is that as of now, different departments of the government, often on a provincial and local level as well, are working separately to create platforms that digitise government. Islamabad as a city, for example, has an app that can be used to pay taxes, register property, and apply for a drivers licence. Similarly, the FBR has its own portal that can be used to file taxes and look for information. However, if you are a person living in Islamabad, you will have to sign up for these services separately.

A digital masterplan through digital identities proposes the integration of these services through a single source.

Take one use case as an example. Currently, most people file their taxes through a lawyer or accountant because that is the easiest way to go about things. Before you file your taxes, you have to gather all of your financial information including bank statements, property ownership, employment details, any cars you might own, your dependents, your maternal grandmother’s nikanamah, and any other assets you might have. All of this information is compiled and given to the FBR. If a digital identity that was fully integrated existed, all of this information regarding property, excise, dependents, etc would already be linked to your identity number.

Theoretically, all you would have to do is log in to your FBR portal, punch in your digital identity, give the website permission to access other data that is available with your ID number, and then file your taxes at the click of a button. On the other hand, it would also be much easier for the FBR to sort through this information since it would all be neatly laid out in front of them. It works both ways.

And there is more. Imagine this system is connected to other aspects of life as well. For example, if a person goes to a government or private hospital, they give their digital identity number to the hospital while registering at the front desk. Their ID is now linked to their medical history, insurance, previous reports and everything else. That makes it very conve-

nient for doctors and patients alike. On top of this, the government will also be able to track what regions certain diseases are spreading in, and have localised data to track and combat it.

What’s hidden between the lines

This is the part that’s worrying. Under this act, the PDA will have wide ranging powers. Even without such powers codified in law, this government has gone far beyond what any previous government has done in terms of playing fast and loose with regulations and bans.

Remember the time when the government slowed down the internet? Or perhaps when they banned twitter. If you don’t remember that you might recall when they unbanned it, then banned it again for the day and then unbanned it again. Of course they continued to deny any involvement the whole time.

This is the crux of the matter. It comes down to trust. Trusting this government with any law—let alone one that holds the keys to controlling the digital future of Pakistan—is not just a risky decision; it’s a catastrophic one. The Digital Nation Pakistan Bill may appear, on the surface, as a well-crafted piece of legislation, but the government’s track record, particularly when it comes to digital rights, speaks volumes about its true intentions.

This is the same government that has repeatedly weaponized the internet, stifling free speech, blocking access to information, and imposing arbitrary restrictions on digital platforms. How can we trust the same players who have shown nothing but disdain for online freedoms to suddenly act in the best interest of a digital society? The same government that has trampled on the freedoms of Pakistan’s digital citizens cannot be trusted to create an environment where technology serves the public good.

Even if this act holds the promise of a more inclusive future, the risk is too great under this administration. The act, while seemingly progressive in its scope, is riddled with ambiguities and potential for abuse. The government’s attempt to centralize and control digital infrastructure under the guise of creating a “Digital Nation” has the distinct odor of authoritarianism. Even if the bill’s language is forward-looking, the execution, under this administration, will most likely follow the same path of misused power, inefficiency, and surveillance that has marked their approach to nearly every other issue.

It is clear that every technological step forward is also a step closer to greater control and surveillance.

Now we’re just waiting to see who gets to exert that control. n

Pace Pakistan board approves major restructuring

The Lahore-based mall developer plans to issue significant amounts of equity to pay down its debt, and plans to convert some debt into equity

Profit Report

Pace (Pakistan) Ltd has set in motion its most ambitious clean up yet. In a brief notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange on June 23, 2025, the Lahore based developer said its board had authorised the sale of the group’s entire 56.79 % holding (9.161 million ordinary shares) in Pace Super Mall (Pvt) Ltd to sister outfit First Capital Securities Corporation Ltd

(FCSC) for cash at “not less than fair value.” The same resolution empowers management to raise fresh equity and ask lenders to swap part of their loans for shares, completing a three part balance sheet overhaul.

Investors signalled cautious approval: Pace’s share price, battered for the past three years by fire related closures and litigation, has risen 8 % since the notice, out performing the wider KSE All Share index in a falling market.

The company will dispose of 9,161,528 shares – its entire controlling stake – in Pace Super Mall, a vehicle that owns the beleaguered Gulberg flagship. FCSC, itself controlled by the Taseer family and already the largest shareholder in Pace, will pay cash. No valuation has been disclosed, but at par (Rs 10 each) the paper value is Rs 91.6 million; analysts note that Gulberg plots transact at several multiples of book, suggesting a likely

consideration in the Rs 1.5–2.0 billion range once independent valuers pronounce.

The board will seek shareholder consent to increase authorised capital and issue new ordinary shares for cash. The proceeds are earmarked for an immediate reduction of secured bank liabilities. While the quantum has not been published, directors confirmed in a call with brokerage analysts that the offer would be “meaningful but non dilutive,” hinting at a rights issue priced close to market.

Finally, Pace has opened talks with its syndicate to convert a “significant portion” of remaining debt into ordinary shares. The proposal still requires credit committee and regulatory sign off, but the precedent of other real estate work outs under the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) Ordinance gives the bankers latitude if shareholders take pain first.

Inside the numbers: a debt story years in the making

Pace’s balance sheet tells a grim tale of leveraged expansion followed by shrinking cashflow and repeated fire damage.

on the then Karachi Stock Exchange in 2007.

The company’s fortunes waned after a series of fires – most notably a 2022 inferno that shut its Gulberg mall – and a brutal property downturn. Yet Pace still controls:

• Pace Barka Properties Ltd, the developer of the Woodlands housing scheme and 25 acre Pace Circle mixed use project.

• Pace Super Mall, owner of the flagship on M. M. Alam Road in Lahore.

• Minority interests in Pace Tower (a stalled 33 storey office) and Peacock Valley Hotel & Resort near Murree.

The group remains family run. Chair and CEO Mrs Aamna Taseer – widow of Salmaan – is also chief executive of FCSC and non executive chair of Media Times, the group’s newspaper and radio arm. Her son Shahbaz Taseer, kidnapped in 2011 and freed in 2016, sits on the Pace and Pace Barka boards.

First Capital, seeded in 1994 with minority partners Smith Barney (US) and HG Asia (Hong Kong), was one of Pakistan’s first full service investment banks. It provided underwriting, advisory and brokerage services through the boom years, and today houses the family’s capital markets licence. Insiders own just over 40% of Pace (direct and through FCSC), giving

How big could the transaction be?

Because both Pace and FCSC are listed, the sale must take place at an independently determined “fair value.” The rights issue could raise a substantial amount: at the current market price of Rs5.90, a fully subscribed 1 for 1 offer would deliver ~Rs1.6 billion before expenses.

Combined, these elements could inject Rs 3 billion+ which would be enough to cover the Rs 2.9 billion current portion of long term debt due over the next 12 months and still leave headroom for capex at Pace Barka.

The Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) Ordinance allows banks to accept equity in settlement where the borrower is a going concern and the swap improves prospects of full recovery. In practice, lenders typically insist on:

1. An immediate cash pay down (the sale proceeds satisfy this).

2. Security over unsold development land (Barka Woodlands plots are on the table).

3. A visible path to dividend resumption (possible once the debt burden halves).

Final approvals by the board could coincide with an extraordinary general meeting in August.

What happens next?

ADebt has climbed 50 % since fiscal year 2021, touching Rs 6.08 billion in March 2025. The current portion of long term debt now equals over 98 % of fiscal year 2024 revenue, underscoring urgent refinancing pressure.

Although a Rs 526 million profit in fiscal year 2024 nudged shareholders’ funds back into positive territory (Rs 2.79 billion in paid up capital vs. Rs 3.18 billion accumulated losses), book value per share remains negative (-Rs0.26).

Management hopes the three pronged restructuring will slice gross debt to about Rs 3 billion, halving finance costs and eliminating covenant breaches.

Profile of Pace Pakistan

Founded in 1992 by the late media magnate and former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, Pace pioneered open plan retail malls in Lahore, expanding to Gujrat, Gujranwala and Karachi before listing

them effective control but also aligning them with minority investors in any dilution.

Other players in the deal

First Capital Securities Corporation Ltd (FCSC) is the buyer of Pace Super Mall shares; it is listed on the PSX, and it reported profit after tax of Rs182 million in fiscal year 2024 on equity of Rs3.4 billion. Its balance sheet is largely unlevered, so it can fund the purchase without stretching itself.

Pace Super Mall (Pvt) Ltd is special purpose company that owns the fire damaged Gulberg mall and adjacent land. Once sold, it will sit under FCSC, allowing the Taseers to rehabilitate or redevelop the site off Pace’s balance sheet.

Syndicate lenders are led by Bank of Punjab, Summit Bank and Soneri Bank. Most of Pace’s exposure is classified as non performing; bankers prefer equity conversion to writing new cheques.

n independent valuation of Pace Super Mall expected by mid July. The shareholder extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to approve the asset sale and revised authorised capital is targeted for late August. The rights issue prospectus will likely follow within 30 days of the EGM. The debt equity swap documentation will be filed with the State Bank and the SECP by end September, aligning with lenders’ third quarter provisioning cycle.

If the time table sticks, Pace will enter fiscal year 2026 with a markedly de risked balance sheet, a lighter interest bill and freedom to reboot projects stalled by years of litigation and fire damage. For minority investors, the short term sting of dilution may finally buy the developer some breathing space – and with it, the chance to rebuild the brand that once defined modern retail in Pakistan.

This restructuring is not merely housekeeping. It represents a transfer of a troubled trophy asset to a deep pocketed related party, a recapitalisation that halves leverage, and a pragmatic compromise with banks. The devil will lie in execution, valuation fairness, and—above all—fire safety compliance at any resurrected mall. But for the first time since the 2022 blaze, Pace Pakistan looks to be acting, not reacting. n

Rising costs squeeze margins at International Packaging Films

Higher input costs, but commoditized end-products have forced manufacturer to struggle with lower gross margins

Profit Report

International Packaging Films Ltd (PSX: IPAK) has reported a sharp fall in profitability for the nine months to March 2025, despite robust top line expansion fuelled by new capacity coming on stream. The company told analysts that consolidated net profit dropped 62% year on year to Rs309.9 million (earnings per share: Rs0.44) in the first nine months of fiscal year 2025, down from Rs823.4 million a year earlier. Operating performance was constrained by higher input costs and an unfavourable shift in product mix, even as revenue surged 66% to Rs26.1 billion over the same period.

Third quarter figures underscored that pressure: January–March sales slipped 3% to Rs4.08 billion, while gross profit declined 8% to Rs785 million and operating profit fell 12%

to Rs673 million. Nevertheless, bottom line earnings for the quarter eked out a 6% rise to Rs255 million, helped by lower finance costs and one off items.

The market’s initial reaction was muted; IPAK’s share price edged 0.5% lower on the Pakistan Stock Exchange as investors digested the margin squeeze against the backdrop of a still expanding top line.

Management blamed the profit compression on a combination of elevated raw material prices and a deliberate tilt towards plain film exports, which carry thinner unit margins than domestic specialty orders. Polypropylene and polyethylene feedstock costs rose during the period, eroding gross margin from 23% to 16% year on year, as shown in the detailed earnings table reproduced on page 2 of the briefing note.

Although new lines boosted volumes, they weighed on efficiency. Group wide util-

isation averaged 62% — with BOPP at 67%, CPP at 90% and BOPET at just 46% — well below the 70 plus percent threshold at which fixed costs are best absorbed. Lower utilisation meant that incremental revenue did not translate into proportional gross profit.

Total debt climbed to Rs28 billion in the period, partly to fund working capital needs linked to higher export receivables. Finance costs dipped 6% to Rs1.06 billion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 thanks to a slight easing in benchmark rates and active treasury management, but servicing such a large debt pile remains a drag on net earnings.

Export revenue reached Rs6 billion, benefiting from a rupee that, while volatile, continues to trade near historic lows against the US dollar. Offsetting that tail wind, the latest federal budget trimmed customs duties on imported BOPET and finished flexible

packaging material by 1 percentage point each, narrowing the price advantage local converters enjoy at home. Duties on polypropylene were cut to zero, eroding protection still further.

What management is saying

The company purposely diverted capacity to global clients in snack food, label stock and personal care films, markets where contracts are longer term, volumes scalable and dollar receipts hedge local cost inflation. The approach explains the 18% year on year decline in standalone (domestic) revenue, which management expects to reverse gradually as speciality coatings are added.

A 6 MW on site solar plant now supplies roughly one third of daytime power, with another 1 MW off grid array undergoing trials. The balance is met by RLNG, but the group has lined up grid connectivity as a contingency should future levies erode RLNG’s cost advantage. Energy typically represents 12–14% of the cost base, so any savings here feed straight into margin.

Despite rising leverage, the board reaffirmed its one third payout policy, signalling confidence that cash flows will strengthen once utilisation lifts. Still, analysts believe the dividend may be modest this year as gearing ratios test internal limits.

IPAK is scouting Middle East distributors and intends to open sales offices in Europe and Africa within two years. Management pins its hopes on the BOPP and BOPET markets growing 6–7% annually, citing data from industry consultants. A new high speed metalliser and nano coating station are slated for commissioning in FY26, aimed at food grade barrier films that command premium pricing.

At least two entrants are expected to bring polypropylene film lines online by June 2026. IPAK claims its scale, positive ESG credentials and first mover export relationships will help defend share, but admitted that local selling prices could come under pressure.

Company profile and history

International Packaging Films traces its roots to 1995, when entrepreneur Syed Asad ul Haq set up a 5,000 tonne BOPP plant on the outskirts of Lahore to supply wrappers for confectionery and detergent. Over three decades, the firm has expanded into cast polypropylene (CPP) and biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET), now boasting nominal capacity in excess of 100,000 tonnes per annum and a customer base spread across FMCG, agribusiness and pharmaceuticals.

Key milestones include its 2007 listing on the Karachi Stock Exchange, raising Rs1.2 billion for a second BOPP line and the group’s first in house extrusion coating facility, its 2015 acquisition of an Italian 8.7 metre CPP line, catapulting the company into high clarity films for bakery and snack applications, and its 2021–23 expansion drive, financed through a mix of debt and internally generated cash, that added the BOPET line highlighted above and nearly doubled power generation capacity.

It also has several ESG initiatives, among them waste heat recovery, solvent less adhesive adoption and the current solar programme, underpin the company’s pledge to reduce scope 1 emissions intensity by 25% before 2030.

Management remains family led, with a professional chief executive but strategic oversight resting with the founding family, which controls roughly 55% of outstanding shares. Around 20% of the free float is held by domestic mutual funds and provident institutions, the remainder by retail investors.

IPAK is a bellwether for Pakistan’s flexible packaging sector. Its performance often

presages trends in resin pricing, energy costs and regional competition. The present results therefore resonate beyond a single counter. If IPAK is wrestling with cost inflation and under utilisation, smaller players with thinner balance sheets are likely feeling an even bigger squeeze.

Chase Securities has already trimmed its earnings estimate to Rs650 million and cut the 12 month target price from Rs30 to Rs26, citing slower than expected margin recovery. The key swing factor will be whether utilisation of the BOPET line can be lifted above 70% by the December quarter and whether management can negotiate better passing through of resin cost fluctuations to export customers.

In the medium term, the company’s export heavy strategy offers a natural hedge against rupee depreciation, while its solar and waste heat projects provide some insulation from energy shocks. But in the here and now, rising costs are squeezing margins, and IPAK’s management must prove that scale and engineering prowess can translate into sustained shareholder returns.

Al Ghazi’s product mix shifting to larger tractors

Farmers in Pakistan have more area per farm, and government

subsidies help them upgrade their equipment

Profit Report

Al Ghazi Tractors Ltd

(PSX: AGTL) has reported robust full year results for calendar 2024 but a much softer start to 2025, and management says the numbers mask a strategic pivot towards higher horse power (HP) machinery that is already reshaping Pakistan’s farm equipment landscape.

For calendar year 2024 the company posted earnings per share of Rs61.11, up 36% from Rs45.06 in the previous year, as gross margin widened to 24% on a broadly flat revenue base of Rs34.6 billion. The out performance came despite a dramatic slump in the first quarter of 2025, when net sales plunged 62% year on year to Rs3.6 billion and EPS collapsed to just Rs1.01, a 93% drop.

Yet behind the headline volatility is a notable shift in what farmers — and increasingly contractors, builders and logistics operators — are buying. Al Ghazi’s newly launched 85 HP NH 850 and a hydraulically advanced “lift o matic” range have enjoyed strong take up, signalling rising appetite for larger tractors and precision ready implements. Live demonstrations held late last year drew sizeable orders from corporate farms and rental fleets, the company said in a post results briefing.

Reading the trends –and what they mean for agriculture

The calendar year 2024 margin lift owed less to pricing power than to a richer sales mix: demand migrated from the ubiquitous 55–65 HP segment to 75 HP plus models that carry

higher sticker prices and better profitability. Cost of sales actually fell 7% during the year, helped by localisation of engine components and favourable steel prices, even as the company absorbed rupee depreciation.

Management attributes the sharp first quarter revenue fall to deliberate production throttling while it retools assembly lines for next generation models and implements a cloud based SAP S/4HANA ERP. The resulting under utilisation pushed gross margin down three percentage points to 21%. However, executives insist the pause will allow faster throughput once the new line balance is achieved.

The pivot to higher horsepower mirrors structural changes in Pakistani agriculture:

• Large lessees in Punjab and Sindh are consolidating holdings and demanding equipment that can pull wider seed drills, rotary tillers and laser levellers in fewer passes. A single 80 HP unit can replace two 55 HP tractors when paired with the right implements, lowering fuel and labour per acre.

• Rural haulage contractors are using the NH 850 for sugar cane trolleys and construction material carts, while municipal authorities prefer the lift o matic’s hydraulic linkages for sanitation and earth moving attachments, according to dealers surveyed after the earnings call.

• The Punjab government’s upcoming tractor subsidy scheme – 10,000 small and 10,000 large units in fiscal year 2026 – explicitly sets higher grant ceilings for 75 HP plus models, tilting demand further up the power curve.

If the trend holds, analysts expect Al Ghazi’s average selling price to rise 15 20% over the next two years, cushioning the cyclical swings traditionally associated with small tractor demand linked to wheat and cotton sowing seasons.

What management is telling investors

Astandalone research and development facility will come on stream by end calendar year 2025, tasked with hybrid drivetrains, telematics for fleet monitoring and smart hydraulics geared to precision farming. Initial budget: Rs1.2 billion, funded from retained earnings — one reason the board again skipped a cash dividend. The SAP S/4HANA deployment, now 60% complete, is already delivering real time margin analytics and supplier visibility. Management claims it trimmed raw material lead time by 12% in the pilot phase and expects further working capital savings once fully rolled out.

Beyond the NH 850, management teased a sub 100 HP turbo diesel with advanced

common rail injection and a 110 HP articulated chassis aimed at emerging corporate farms. A separate “Italian lift o matic” variant — unveiled at the start of calendar year 2025 — adds European spec hydraulic pumps capable of handling precision seed planters and sprayers.

Afghanistan remains Al Ghazi’s only sizeable foreign market, but the company aims to penetrate East Africa once emissions and homologation standards are met. Management conceded it needs a broader portfolio, including climate controlled cabins, to compete regionally.

After the Q1 lull, assembly is now back at 70% utilisation, and management guides to fiscal year 2025 revenue of Rs31–33 billion with gross margin in the “low twenties” percent. The order book is “front loaded” with larger tractors, suggesting an improved sales mix even if unit volumes remain subdued.

Company profile: four decades of mechanising Pakistan

Founded in 1983 as a joint venture among Al Futtaim Group of the UAE, CNH Industrial (then New Holland) and local investors, Al Ghazi Tractors set up shop at Dera Ghazi Khan with an installed capacity of 30,000 units per annum, subsequently expanded to 50,000. It quickly became synonymous with the blue New Holland tractor, capturing market share from the red Massey Fergusons produced by Millat Tractors.

Key chapters in the company’s history show a pattern of incremental innovation and localization. In the 1990s, its early localisation drive reduced imported content from 80% to below 50%, enabling aggressive pricing and rapid rural penetration.

In 2006, the introduction of the Ghazi 65 HP model coincided with record wheat

support prices, cementing the tractor’s status as the workhorse of small and mid sized farms. In the 2012–14 energy crisis, line stoppages due to gas shortages pushed the company towards captive power and a more modular assembly layout, strengthening resilience.

During 2017 belt tightening, facing currency depreciation, Al Ghazi accelerated parts localisation to 95%, mitigating FX exposure and earning the “Highest Tractor Exporter” award for shipments to Afghanistan.

Its 2024 pivot to high HP resulted in the launch of the NH 850 and lift o matic series marks the company’s first foray above 75 HP at scale, positioning it for a mechanisation wave driven by corporate farming and construction.

Al Ghazi now employs over 1,600 people and maintains a nationwide network of 82 dealers who offer tractors on cash, instalment and now subscription based rental schemes. The company estimates that more than 320,000 of its units are currently in operation — roughly one third of the national tractor fleet.

Al Ghazi’s latest results illustrate the duality of transition: a lucrative calendar year 2024 on the back of a richer mix, followed by a bruising first quarter as production recalibrated. Short term turbulence aside, the swing towards larger, smarter tractors appears irreversible. For Pakistani agriculture, the implications are significant: fewer field passes, lower per acre fuel use and the prospect of integrating precision seeding, fertiliser metering and data driven soil management — all prerequisites for lifting yields in a resource constrained environment.

Investors will keep a wary eye on demand elasticity; bigger tractors require bigger cheques, and the success of provincial subsidy schemes will be crucial. But if early NH 850 orders are any guide, Pakistan’s mechanisation curve may finally be bending upwards — with Al Ghazi riding point. n

By Hamza Aurangzeb

Over the past decade, Pakistan’s digital connectivity landscape has undergone significant evolution, transitioning from scattered cell towers and patchy broadband to extensive, structured fiber networks and rapidly expanding 4G coverage. However, beneath this progress lies a stubborn paradox: while broadband technology has advanced, its access remains limited or inequitable in the country.

Tens of millions remain disconnected, particularly in rural and marginalized regions where the internet is more of a facade than an actual reality. The digital divide is a persistent fault line that is widening socioeconomic gaps among communities as economic opportunities, education, and services increasingly transition online.

Recently, a new development has emerged that could alter the trajectory of digital connectivity in the country. Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), Telco Integrators Pvt Ltd, and Kacific

Eye on the sky: The race to connect Pakistan’s forgotten corners

As satellite internet ventures rise, a new alliance aims to bring Pakistan’s most disconnected regions online before the global competition arrives

Broadband Satellites Group have signed a strategic partnership, one that aims to bring high-speed and reliable satellite broadband to the remotest corners of the country that is affordable for the masses. However, the question remains: can this alliance finally bridge the gap that fiber and terrestrial networks have struggled to cover?

The answer isn’t a straightforward one, especially as the satellite internet race is bound to intensify in the country as SpaceX’s Starlink, known for its low-Earth-orbit constellation, is also eyeing Pakistan’s underserved markets. Although it has yet to clear regulatory hurdles or forge local ties, its eventual arrival could reshape the ecosystem altogether.

The transformative power of digital connectivity

for inclusive economic growth

When it comes to emerging markets like Pakistan, where vast segments of the population remain discon -

nected from the mainstream digital world and economic activity, the expansion of digital infrastructure offers a transformative opportunity to reshape the future for them. It is not merely about internet access—it is about unlocking human potential, nurturing innovation, and creating an inclusive growth model that works for everyone, regardless of geography or gender.

Digital access empowers communities that have historically remained underdeveloped, bridging decades of development disparities. It serves as a powerful catalyst that boosts productivity, opens new markets, and drives transformation across sectors from agriculture and education to healthcare and trade. In underdeveloped regions, digital connectivity equips micro and small enterprises with the tools to reach customers far beyond their immediate surroundings, enabling them to compete in national and even global digital value chains.

Several research studies affirm this profound impact. The recently released Pakistan Development Update by the World Bank Group revealed that, according to a study spanning 14 low- and middle-in -

come countries, a mere 10-percentage-point increase in 3G coverage was shown to raise employment rates by 2.1 percentage points. In Africa, the introduction of high-speed internet increased an individual’s likelihood of employment by up to 13.2%, boosted total firm employment by 22%, and quadrupled exports. These are not just statistics, they are lives changed, communities uplifted, and economies reimagined.

For Pakistan, where economic growth remains sluggish and inequality distinct, digital connectivity offers a direct path to progress. It can diminish poverty, enhance access to education and healthcare, and significantly improve financial inclusion for marginalized populations. Most notably, it can be a game-changer for women and youth, particularly in rural areas where traditional job markets are limited. Pakistan can ameliorate its persistently low female labor force participation by equipping women with digital tools and remote employment opportunities.

However, despite high potential, Pakistan’s ICT sector contributed only 3% to GDP in FY24 and accounted for less than 0.1% of global digital exports. This underperformance underscores the urgency of expanding digital access, not as an afterthought but as a cornerstone of national policy.

Digital connectivity is not just infrastructure; it is empowerment. It is a bridge between aspiration and opportunity. If scaled equitably and diligently, it holds the power to unleash Pakistan’s full economic potential, bringing millions into the fold of prosperity and enabling the country to thrive in the modern digital age.

The cost of low connectivity

While most of the world rides the momentum of the digital revolution, Pakistan remains stalled by a deep and persistent blockade in digital connectivity. The global recognition of internet access as a fundamental enabler of opportunity and growth has surged over the years but despite that, Pakistan’s journey toward universal digital inclusion remains constrained by infrastructure deficits, affordability challenges, and entrenched social inequalities. These systemic barriers threaten the country’s aspirations for inclusive economic modernization and risk further isolating already marginalized communities.

At the heart of the challenge lies a glaring

paradox: Pakistan has the third-largest mobile broadband usage gap in the world, with over 140 million people living in areas that technically have mobile broadband coverage but remain unconnected. This stark disconnect between availability and actual usage exposes structural weaknesses, such as high costs of access, low digital literacy, and restrictive social norms that undermine even the most well-intentioned policies.

Moreover, the coverage landscape itself is uneven. Around 17% of Pakistan’s population still lives outside the reach of mobile broadband altogether. Coverage rates for 3G and 4G stand at 74.9% and 83.6%, respectively, trailing the South Asian average and leaving millions without access to functional internet. One-third of the population remains trapped on outdated 2G networks, while the rollout of 5G is already underway in countries like India,

Sri Lanka, and Bhutan but remains absent in Pakistan due to poor fiber penetration and low tower density. In short, Pakistan’s digital infrastructure is not keeping pace with either domestic demand or regional benchmarks.

The problem worsens when we examine inequality across demographics. According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey, only 23% of rural households have internet access, less than half of urban households. This urban-rural digital divide reinforces cycles of exclusion, particularly for communities dependent on agriculture, informal labor, or low-income education systems.

Furthermore, gender disparities exacerbate this divide. Multiple global indices, including the Global Gender Gap Report 2024 and the GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index, rank Pakistan among the lowest countries in terms of digital gender parity. The 38% digital gender gap in mobile ownership and internet adoption reflects deeper inequities in education, mobility, and autonomy for women, blocking them from accessing the tools that could lift them into economic participation and empowerment.

Until these obstructions are dismantled, Pakistan’s potential for inclusive economic growth would remain constrained. The digital divide is no longer just a connectivity issue; it is a social and economic fault line, where closing this gap is not optional; it is imperative for building a more equitable, innovative, and prosperous future.

Why Pakistan’s

digital infrastructure leaves millions behind

While much of the digital divide discourse in Pakistan focuses on last-mile access like who has a device, who can afford data, but there’s a deeper, structural issue at play: a fragile and highly concentrated broadband backbone. This upstream infrastructure bottleneck severely limits the coverage, quality, and resilience of internet services, especially outside the country’s economic core.

The majority of Pakistan’s national broadband infrastructure is concentrated along a single north-south corridor, running through the Indus River basin, which connects major urban centers like Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi. This pattern of development isn’t random or coincidental. Around 80% of the population and an equivalent share of the GDP are clustered along this corridor, making it a commercially viable target for investment by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile operators. On the contrary, western regions like Balochistan and Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa remain underserved, hindered by challenging terrain, lower population density, and historic security concerns.

However, this infrastructure concentration creates a dangerous centralization. A single disruption along this backbone as seen during the flood-induced fiber cuts in August 2022 can cripple national connectivity. Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) is the only entity with a truly nationwide network and most ISPs and mobile network operators are dependent on its infrastructure. This de facto monopoly, shaped in part by complex and costly bureaucratic hurdles such as high right-of-way (RoW) fees and multi-agency approvals, has discouraged private sector expansion into underserved regions.

These results are deeply felt at the user level as internet speeds in Pakistan are among the lowest in South Asia, averaging just 16 Mbps for fixed broadband and 20 Mbps for mobile. In smaller districts, average speeds fall even below 8 Mbps, insufficient for modern applications like remote work, video conferencing, or digital classrooms. Additionally, only 14% of cell towers are fiber-connected in Pakistan, compared to 30% in India and 45% in Malaysia. The rest are connected through microwave links, which have limited speed and reliability.

Affordability is another casualty of this broken infrastructure. Fixed broadband prices consume over 11% of average gross

monthly income, five times higher than global affordability benchmarks. Even mobile broadband, though cheaper at 1.8% of GNI, remains out of reach for rural and low-income users plagued by poor signals and unreliable service.

To close the gap, Pakistan must not only expand fiber optics and spectrum availability but also decentralize its broadband backbone, invest in western provinces, and reform regulatory barriers. The promise of digital inclusion will remain out of reach for millions without such foundational change.

A Strategic Alliance for Enhancing Digital Inclusion in Pakistan

In a landmark move aimed at addressing Pakistan’s deep-rooted digital divide, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), Telco Integrators Pvt Ltd (TI), and Kacific Broadband Satellites Group have formed a strategic partnership to bring high-speed satellite internet, broadband, and voice services to underserved and remote areas across the country. This collaboration could be a turning point for millions of Pakistanis living beyond the reach of traditional fiber and mobile networks, especially in regions historically sidelined due to geography, low population density, and infrastructure challenges.

Pakistan’s digital connectivity crisis is not just a matter of individual access; it stems

from broader systemic limitations, including a fragile and centralized broadband backbone, limited fiber penetration, and underdeveloped infrastructure in peripheral provinces like Balochistan and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The combination of PTCL’s nationwide fiber and submarine cable network, Kacific’s satellite-powered broadband technology, and the local technical expertise of Telco Integrators offers a powerful, integrated approach to overcoming these entrenched barriers. The initiative aims to deliver both fixed broadband to homes, schools, SMEs, and public institutions, and mobile broadband support through satellite-powered backhaul for cell towers located in treacherous areas.

The use of satellite technology is particularly significant in Pakistan’s context. Many regions remain either unconnected or severely underserved due to the high costs and logistical challenges of deploying terrestrial infrastructure. Kacific’s high-throughput Kaband satellite offers fast, stable connectivity to underserved areas without the need to extend fiber networks to each remote location, while relying on a limited number of centralized ground stations. This is especially impactful for mobile operators who need to expand 4G coverage to remote areas but lack backhaul capacity. Thus, rural cell sites can now be brought online far more quickly and cost-effectively than before, with satellite backhaul integrated into Pakistan’s core telecom network.

The success of this effort, however, depends not only on advanced technology but on local implementation and support. This is where Telco Integrators play a critical role, managing deployment on the ground, installing VSAT terminals, and ensuring ongoing maintenance and customer service. The company’s operational presence makes it possible to translate space-based capacity into real, usable last-mile internet for communities that have long waited for reliable digital access, while PTCL provides the national backbone and routing capabilities. The collaboration among all partners to distribute services through telecom operators, businesses, and local ISPs, represents a comprehensive solution to Pakistan’s long-standing digital inclusion challenges.

This alliance is more than just a technological venture; it is a meaningful response to one of Pakistan’s most urgent development needs. By extending connectivity to where it’s needed most, the partnership offers a blueprint for bridging the digital divide, not just through innovation, but through coordinated action. In a country where a significant portion of the population remains offline, such collaboration signals a hopeful shift toward inclusive growth, economic opportunity, and a digitally empowered future.

Is satellite internet competition about to heat up in Pakistan?

The arrival of satellite internet services like Kacific Broadband Satellites Group has the potential to reshape the landscape of broadband connectivity in Pakistan, particularly for the country’s hard-to-reach and underserved regions. However, one must not forget the other major contender, Starlink, which is also preparing to enter the Pakistani market. It will be interesting to see how these developments alter the dynamics of connectivity in the country.

Kacific currently holds a clear first-mover advantage, having signed a formal three-way partnership with PTCL and Telco Integrators Pvt Ltd. The partnership is focused on delivering high-speed satellite internet and backhaul services to underserved communities. Kacific’s wholesale-only model relies on partnerships with local ISPs, telecom operators, enterprises, and government entities, allowing for scalable and affordable broadband delivery without requiring users to purchase expensive equipment or subscriptions.

Kacific operates using geostationary (GEO) Ka-band satellites positioned about 35,786 kilometers above the Earth, maintaining a fixed position relative to the surface. This enables continuous coverage over large areas with only a few centralized ground stations. Its architecture is ideal for public Wi-Fi deployments, rural institutions, and mobile tower backhaul in regions lacking terrestrial fiber. Kacific’s footprint spans across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

On the contrary, Starlink uses a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, with satellites orbiting at altitudes of about 550 km. This design supports low-latency and high-speed connections, even in remote or infrastructure-poor regions across the globe. However, it also requires a dense network of satellites and many ground stations to maintain seamless coverage. It initially targeted the

direct-to-consumer (D2C) market but it has now expanded into enterprise and wholesale services, including mobile backhaul and satellite-to-cell offerings as well.

In terms of performance, Starlink offers higher speeds and lower latency, typically ranging from 50 to 250 Mbps with latency between 25–60 milliseconds, suitable for gaming, telehealth, and real-time collaboration. Kacific’s Ka-band service offers stable speeds between 30 to 100 Mbps, with latency between 550–660 milliseconds, adequate for streaming, education, and general use. Kacific can provide consistent service across wide, sparsely populated areas through its focused beam coverage and fewer ground station requirements,

As far as the pricing is concerned, Kacific holds an affordability edge in emerging markets. Its wholesale bandwidth is resold by partners, which include governments, ISPs, NGOs, making it more accessible to schools, clinics, and rural households. On the other hand, Starlink’s high upfront hardware costs and high-priced monthly fees make it less viable for low-income users in developing countries.

Moreover, Starlink also faces several regulatory hurdles in Pakistan, such as spectrum licensing and local partnerships. As of now, it has not signed any MoU with a local partner nor launched commercial services. This regulatory lag gives Kacific valuable time to expand and integrate with Pakistan’s national infrastructure. However, once Starlink secures regulatory approvals and establishes local partnerships, it is likely to intensify competition, drive down costs, spur innovation, and accelerate the development of digital infrastructure.

In conclusion, while the Kacific–PTCL–Telco Integrators alliance currently holds the lead but Starlink’s eventual entry could add a layer of healthy competition. For Pakistan, a nation facing deep digital access disparities, having multiple satellite providers contending to dominate the connectivity space would offer a pivotal opportunity to usher in an era of affordable, inclusive, and resilient digital connectivity. n