ISLAMABAD: Amid cheers from a roaring crowd, Pakistani egamers battled to win the grand prize pool money of Rs2 million ($11381) in one of the biggest ever esports tournaments in the heart of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad this week, sponsored by a Dubai-based gaming firm.
Participants played PUBG MOBILE and Valorant on big gaming consoles and PCs at the event, titled as Gamers Galaxy, which was organized by the Dubai-based Galaxy Racer gaming firm at the Pakistan-China Friendship Center in the Pakistani capital.
The two-day tournament, which was set to conclude Sunday night, was one of its kind and witnessed participation of women gamers in the women-dedicated Her Galaxy contest.
Televised in partnership with Ten Sports, the event was attended by UAE-based businessman His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al-Maktoum, UAE’s ambassador to Pakistan Hamad Obaid Al-Zaabi, and Pakistan’s ruling party leaders Senator Faisal Javed Khan and Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari.
“Gamers Galaxy is going to be an opportunity for players all over Pakistan to participate and get into a prize pool of $100,000. For those interested, this is a community-level event,” said Walid Singer, the Gamers Galaxy staff chief.
“We want this prize to be shared across the community not just among professional players because this is how you’ll see an ecosystem.”
Faisal Javed Khan, a senator from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said his government was fully supporting businesses.
” This platform is a huge platform for the youth of Pakistan. Last year, our IT exports grew by 40 percent for the first time in the history of Pakistan and crossed $2 billion mark,” he said. “We are hoping that in the next 2-3 years we’ll be able to cross $6 billion.”
Fakhar-e-Alam, a TV host and chief executive officer of Galaxy Racer Pakistan, said they were going to bring the first ever professional esports league in Pakistan, called the Supreme Galactic league, followed by school- and college-level tournament, called the Scholars’ Galaxy.
“With this investment in Pakistan, it further solidifies the brotherly relationship between UAE and Pakistan,” he said. “These bilateral things show the commitment of the people of the UAE to the people of Pakistan.”
About the participation of women in the tournament, Alam said they created a separate space to encourage Pakistani women to compete in esports.
Members of Team Clarity, who played Valorant, said their families supported them a lot and the perception that egaming was “unproductive” needed to be changed.
The youngest participant of the event was a 9-year-old girl, Anabia Naveed, who loves to play Tekken, said her father asked her to compete in the tournament, telling her she played the game really well.
World-renowned Tekken player Arslan Siddiqui, also known as Arslan Ash, was also one of the attendees at the event.
“Pakistan has gradually started matching the international-level esports as the government is supporting it. We always needed that support,” he said.
“The difference between Pakistan and international-level is that there the governments support talent, they are provided with jobs, streaming platforms like Twitch, where people earn but in Pakistan little attention is paid to it. My message to the youth is you need to keep a balance between studies and gaming.”
“I think it’s a big opportunity for female gamers who want to compete professionally as this had been a male-dominant industry for a very long time and women from all over the world are excelling now,” said Iqra Khan, a participant of Her Galaxy.
“Pakistani women should not lag behind and we are working hard to make this happen.”
Pakistani gamers chase esports glory in Islamabad tournament sponsored by Dubai-based firm
https://arab.news/5cd55
Pakistani gamers chase esports glory in Islamabad tournament sponsored by Dubai-based firm
- Dubai-based firm Galaxy Racer organized the event that offers Rs2 million grand prize
- Participants, including women gamers, compete in PUBG MOBILE and Valorant games
Pakistan reports current account surplus in Jan. owing to improved trade, remittances
- Pakistan’s exports crossed the $3 billion mark in Jan. as the country received $3.5 billion in remittances
- Last month, IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate pace of structural reforms to strengthen economic growth
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded a current account surplus of more than $120 million in January, the country’s finance adviser said on Tuesday, attributing it to improved trade balance and remittance inflows.
Pakistan’s exports rebounded in January 2026 after five months of weak performance, rising 3.73 percent year on year and surging 34.96 percent month on month, according to data released by the country’s statistics bureau.
Exports crossed the $3 billion mark for the first time in January to reach $3.061 billion, compared to $2.27 billion in Dec. 2025. The country received $3.5 billion in foreign remittances in Jan. 2026.
Khurram Schehzad, an adviser to the finance minister, said Pakistan reported a current account surplus of $121 million in Jan., compared to a current account deficit of $393 million in the same month last year.
“Improved trade balance in January 2026, strong remittance inflows, and sustained momentum in services exports (IT/Tech) continue to reinforce the country’s external account position,” he said on X.
Pakistan has undergone a difficult period of stabilization, marked by inflation, currency depreciation and financing gaps, and international rating agencies have acknowledged improvements after Islamabad began implementing reforms such as privatizing loss-making, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and ending subsidies as part of a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program.
Late last month, the IMF urged Pakistan to accelerate the pace of these structural reforms to strengthen economic growth.
Responding to questions from Arab News at a virtual media roundtable on emerging markets’ resilience, IMF’s director of the Middle East and Central Asia Jihad Azour said Islamabad’s implementation of the IMF requirements had been “strong” despite devastating floods that killed more than 1,000 people and devastated farmland, forcing the government to revise its 4.2 percent growth target to 3.9 percent.
“What is important going forward in order to strengthen growth and to maintain the level of macroeconomic stability is to accelerate the structural reforms,” he said at the meeting.
Azour underlined Pakistan’s plans to privatize some of the SOEs and improve financial management of important public entities, particularly power companies, as an important way for the country to boost its capacity to cater to the economy for additional exports.
“This comes in addition to the effort that the authorities have made in order to reform their tariffs, which will allow the private sector of Pakistan to become more competitive,” the IMF official said.
