KARACHI: Pakistan’s equities witnessed a bearish trend on Monday as KSE 100 index declined by 2.9 percent due to global oil prices and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speech wherein he criticized the European Union for asking his government to condemn Russian invasion of Ukraine, traders and analysts said.
KSE 100 index closed the trading at 43,259.86 after shedding 1,291 points or 2.9 percent mainly due to panic selling after Brent Crude moved above $123.9 per barrel against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine.
The Pakistani prime minister also responded to a letter written by European Union representatives in which they asked Islamabad to condemn Russia’s “unprovoked attack,” asking them if they had written a similar letter to India as well.
“Pakistan’s equity market opened on a negative note mainly due to the oil prices and the speech of PM Khan,” Muhammad Sohail, chief executive officer of Topline Securities, told Arab News.
Pakistani analysts urged the government not to take sides in the ongoing war in Eastern Europe and focus on its own economic interests.
“We should be careful while making speeches or siding with any country,” Khurram Schehzad, chief executive officer of Alpha Beta Core, a financial advisory firm, told Arab News. “Economic interest should supersede everything else.”
Brent Crude, which was trading above $130 per barrel in the morning session, had declined to $123.9 per barrel with gain of 4.86 percent in the international market by the evening. The crude is continuously increasing since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022.
“Brent Crude on Monday morning was trading at about $135 per barrel which is the highest level since 2008,” Samiullah Tariq, director research at the Pakistan-Kuwait Investment Company, told Arab News.
“Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, commodity prices have come under pressure,” he added. “The commodities are trading at a higher level with upward pressure.”
Pakistan stocks plummet on surging global oil prices, PM’s speech criticizing EU
https://arab.news/n42tx
Pakistan stocks plummet on surging global oil prices, PM’s speech criticizing EU
- Brent Crude rises above $123 per barrel against backdrop of Russian invasion of Ukraine
- PM Khan had criticized EU representatives for demanding Pakistan condemn Russian actions
Imran Khan’s party shutdown draws mixed response; government calls it ‘ineffective’
- Ex-PM Khan’s PTI party had called for a ‘shutter-down strike’ to protest Feb. 8, 2024 general election results
- While businesses reportedly remained closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they continued as normal elsewhere
ISLAMABAD: A nationwide “shutter-down strike” called by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party drew a mixed response in Pakistan on Sunday, underscoring political polarization in the country two years after a controversial general election.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT) opposition party had urged the masses to shut businesses across the country to protest alleged rigging on the second anniversary of the Feb. 8, 2024 general election.
Local media reported a majority of businesses remained closed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, governed by the PTI, while business continued as normal in other provinces as several trade associations distanced themselves from the strike call.
Arab News visited major markets in Islamabad’s G-6, G-9, I-8 and F-6 sectors, as well as commercial hubs in Rawalpindi, which largely remained operational on Sunday, a public holiday when shops, restaurants and malls typically remain open in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s constitution says people will elect their representatives. But on 8th February 2024, people were barred from exercising their voting right freely,” Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri, the PTI opposition leader in the Senate, said at a protest march near Islamabad’s iconic Faisal Mosque.
Millions of Pakistanis voted for national and provincial candidates during the Feb. 8, 2024 election, which was marred by a nationwide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government at the time and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) both rejected the allegations.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The government insists the polling was conducted transparently and that Khan’s party was not denied a fair chance.
Authorities in the Pakistani capital deployed a heavy police contingent on the main road leading to the Faisal Mosque on Sunday. Despite police presence and the reported arrest of some PTI workers, Jafri led local PTI members and dozens of supporters who chanted slogans against the government at the march.
“We promise we will never forget 8th February,” Jafri said.
The PTI said its strike call was “successful” and shared videos on official social media accounts showing closed shops and markets in various parts of the country.
The government, however, dismissed the protest as “ineffective.”
“The public is fed up with protest politics and has strongly rejected PTI’s call,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X.
“It’s Sunday, yet there is still hustle and bustle.”
Ajmal Baloch, All Pakistan Traders Association president, said they neither support such protest calls, nor prevent individuals from closing shops based on personal political affiliation.
“It’s a call from a political party and we do not close businesses on calls of any political party,” Baloch told Arab News.
“We only give calls of strike on issues related to traders.”
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful generals. The army denies it interferes in politics. Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power.
In Jan. 2025, an accountability court convicted Khan and his wife in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, sentencing him to 14 years and her to seven years after finding that the trust was used to acquire land and funds in exchange for alleged favors. The couple denies any wrongdoing.
