KARACHI: Faced with a financial and economic crisis, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s first visit to Saudi Arabia could be the ideal solution to boost the country’s political and economic confidence, experts said on Tuesday.
The trip, which begins on Tuesday, holds even more significance as Khan is expected to seek $2-$3 billion in economic aid from the Kingdom, with an urgent need to inject around $9 billion into the economy — to stabilize external accounts largely inflated from high imports and insufficient exports.
“Pakistan expects an injection of around $2 billion to $3 billion in order to stabilize its foreign reserves position, currency and external balance sheet,” Dr. Bilal Ahmed, senior economic analyst, told Arab News.
Adding that Pakistan would largely benefit from the visit, especially if the Kingdom is convinced “to supply oil at concessionary rates which would mitigate pressure on the import bill to a large extent,” Dr. Ahmed said he believed, if successful, this “would be a big achievement of PM Khan”.
During the last fiscal year, 2017-18, the country’s imports of petroleum stood at a whopping $13.27 billion, imported from different countries, including Saudi Arabia. “If Pakistan gets the oil at a deferred payment or at relaxed conditions the issue of country’s cash will be resolved,” Syed Mazhar Ali Nasir, Senior Vice President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry — an apex body of Pakistan’s industrialists and traders — told Arab News.
Bilateral trade is another area where economists stressed a need for negotiations with the Kingdom. “Seeking more waivers from payment on oil imports and loans from the Islamic Development Bank through Saudi’s help, we should explore avenues for exports to Saudi Arabia by ending tariff and non-tariff barriers that have decreased trade of goods and services,” Dr. Ikram ul Haq, a senior economist and expert in legal matters, suggested.
Despite holding great potential, bilateral trade between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is only $3.4 billion and largely in favor of Saudi Arabia. Pakistan imported $3.1 billion worth of goods from the Kingdom during the fiscal year 2017-18, while exports stood at $316.7 million, data shared by the State Bank of Pakistan showed.
Suggesting new means to explore bilateral trade and investment — by relying less on traditional goods and services – Dr. Haq said: “Pakistan should try to win Saudi’s contracts for IT services as this is the area where we have potential to earn foreign exchange but we never tried. We must come out of traditional item like textile.”
Saudi Arabia imports a huge quantity of sanitary ware during the Hajj season mainly from other Middle Eastern countries. “This sanitary ware is imported from Pakistan and then exported after value addition. If Saudis start a joint venture with Pakistani manufacturers both countries can benefit,” Nasir said.
Adding that agriculture could be another sector that Pakistan could tap into to seek Saudi investment through joint ventures, Dr. Haq said: “This area has potential to grow fast and create export surplus. Saudis investors can be lured for modern corporate farming in Pakistan to earn substantial profits.”
Saudi officials have, in the past, expressed an interest in Pakistan’s mega projects – such as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor --- to help Pakistan benefit from Saudi Arabia’s investment and expertise in petrochemical sectors. “Pakistan should also seek Saudi direct investment in infrastructure development that will not only ease out the balance of payment situation but also yield long term benefits,” Dr. Haq said.
$3bn economic aid expected from PM Khan’s Saudi visit — economists
$3bn economic aid expected from PM Khan’s Saudi visit — economists
- Saudi’s financial assistance could ease cash flow pressure faced by Pakistan
- Bilateral trade, investment in joint ventures and CPEC projects to top agenda
Pakistani man convicted in US in political assassination plot tied to Iranian paramilitary
- Asif Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses
- He testified he met a Revolutionary Guard operative who gave him countersurveillance training, assignments
NEW YORK: A Pakistani business owner who tried to hire hit men to kill a US politician was convicted Friday in a trial that showcased allegations of Iran-backed plotting on American soil.
As the Iran war unfolded in the Mideast, Asif Merchant acknowledged in a US court that he sought to put an assassination in motion during the 2024 presidential campaign — a plot that was quickly disrupted by American investigators before it had a chance to proceed.
A jury in Brooklyn convicted Merchant on terrorism and murder for hire charges.
The verdict after only a couple hours of deliberations followed a weeklong trial that included remarkable testimony from Merchant himself.
Merchant told the jury he was carrying out instructions from a contact in the Islamic Republic’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. According to Merchant, the handler never specified a target but broached names including then-candidate Donald Trump, then-President Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who was also in the race for a time.
The Iranian government has denied trying to kill US officials.
The nascent plot fell apart after Merchant showed an acquaintance what he had in mind by using objects on a napkin to depict a shooting at a rally. He asked the man to help him hire assassins. Instead, he was introduced to undercover FBI agents who were secretly recording him, as had the acquaintance.
Merchant told the supposed hit men he needed services that could include killing “some political person” and paid them $5,000 in cash in a parked car in Manhattan.
“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released after the conviction.
Merchant’s attorney, Avraham Moskowitz, didn’t immediately reply to a message seeking comment.
Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses. He has two families, in Pakistan and Iran, and he sometimes visited the US for his garment business.
Merchant testified that he met a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative about three years ago. The contact gave him countersurveillance training and assignments including the assassination scheme, Merchant said.
He maintained that he had to do his handler’s bidding to protect loved ones in Iran. The defendant said he reluctantly went through the motions but thought he’d be arrested and explain his situation to authorities before anyone was killed.
“I was going along with it,” he said, speaking in Urdu through a court interpreter.
Prosecutors emphasized that Merchant admitted taking steps to enact the plan on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard, which the US considers a foreign terrorist organization, and he didn’t proactively go to authorities.
Instead, he was packing for a flight to Pakistan when he was arrested on July 12, 2024, a day before an unrelated attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Officials said it appeared the Butler gunman acted alone but that they had been tracking a threat on Trump’s life from Iran, a claim that the Islamic Republic called “unsubstantiated and malicious.”
When Merchant subsequently spoke to FBI agents to explore the possibility of a cooperation agreement, he didn’t say he had acted out of fear for his family.
Prosecutors argued that he didn’t back up a defense of acting under duress. Merchant sought to persuade jurors he simply didn’t think the agents would believe him because they seemed to “think that I am some type of super-spy,” which he said he was “absolutely not.”
