British Ambassador Philip Barton in a meeting with the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade in Lahore. PHOTO: PHILIP BARTON's TWITTER
LAHORE:
It seems that the new British High Commissioner, Philip Barton, is quite interested in giving trade ties between the United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan due importance, apart from his other diplomatic responsibilities.
“Strengthening commercial trade between the two countries is my top priority, the premiers of both countries have already decided to boost bilateral trade to £3 billion by 2015,” Barton said while talking to a group of journalists. “Achieving this target is my personal priority,” he said.
Trade between the UK and Pakistan in 2012 was £2.1 billion. To boost this, the ambassador has started meeting officials of key government institutions.
For Barton, boosting bilateral trade and investment will revolve around three points. First, make British businesses aware of opportunities of doing business in Pakistan.
The hurdle, he said, to this particular point is the distorted picture of Pakistan portrayed in the UK in certain reports due to violence. Image-building will be of key importance as it will help bring more investment to the country.
Still, Barton thinks that the British businesses operating in Pakistan may be an encouraging factor for others to come.
“I see many successful British businesses in Karachi, other British companies can also have successful business in Pakistan, particularly in Punjab,” he said.
The second point he raised is the opportunity of increased access to European markets for Pakistan after the GSP Plus status. He was hopeful that this can also increase the level of trade between the UK and Pakistan.
“Pakistan should take maximum advantage of this status, many Pakistani textile businesses are expecting their orders in Europe to expand, which is good,” he added.
In his meeting earlier with officials of the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade, Barton backed the initiatives to develop partnership and a platform to share and develop a common knowledge base and to encourage exchange of trade and business-related information, and actively facilitate business-to-business linkages between interested parties.
The last point, according to Barton, includes efforts to work with government departments to minimise and clear hurdles which are often faced by the businessmen. “We will work with the government to knock down some of the barriers to trade,” he added.
He described Punjab as the heart of UK-Pakistan commercial relations, which provides a big exciting opportunity for the UK. Though it is hard for him to say exactly when fresh British investment will arrive, he hoped that in about a year Pakistan may hear a series of announcements from the investors.
Apart from UK-Pakistan commercial relations, Barton also suggested that India and Pakistan should work on their trade relations. He termed the level of trade between the two countries very low.
“We support India-Pakistan trade relations, both countries are huge markets. The level of trade should increase as there are huge opportunities for businesses to expand,” he remarked.
The government does not want to shelve the project and wants to wait for normalisation of relations between Iran and the US. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan has formally conveyed to Iran that the gas pipeline project could not be pushed ahead because of the threat of US sanctions and sought an extension in the project deadline in a last-ditch attempt to avoid penalty. However, it has received no immediate assurances.
According to sources, the government does not want to shelve the project and want to wait for normalisation of relations between Iran and the US in the wake of a deal between Tehran and global powers over the former’s nuclear programme. This could clear the way for pressing on with the gas pipeline.
A Pakistani team met officials in Tehran recently, where it called for extending the deadline for completing the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project. Under the schedule, first flow of gas must start in December 2014. In case of failure, Pakistan will have to pay a penalty of $3 million per day under the Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA).
The delegation, led by Petroleum Secretary Abid Saeed, cited possible US sanctions for the delay.
Iranian officials said they would respond to the request after consulting relevant authorities, sources said. Talks were held in a cordial atmosphere with hopes that Tehran would give a positive response, they said.
Earlier, the Foreign Office had held an inter-ministerial meeting, comprising representatives of the ministries of law, finance and petroleum, which noted that the government had failed to generate funds from different countries and banks due to the risk of sanctions. Even friendly countries like China had backed out.
All the ministries agreed that the government should apprise Iran that US sanctions were a major bottleneck in the way of raising funds and Pakistan would not be able to import compressors for the pipeline.
According to sources, during recent talks in Tehran, the Pakistani delegation stressed that they were sincere about executing the project but they had not been able to raise funds and even bring equipment for the pipeline.
They further said two companies – Germany-based Siemens and US-based General Electric – had expertise in manufacturing compressors to pump gas into the pipeline, but Pakistan would not be able to purchase from these companies due to US opposition.
Earlier on December 9 last year, Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi led a delegation for talks with Iranian officials. This was the first interaction on the project since change of governments in the two countries in mid-2013.
They wanted to renegotiate the agreed gas price and the construction contract, but during the meeting, they came to know that it was difficult to implement the project in the face of US sanctions.
Though Iran has signed a nuclear deal with the US and other western powers, Washington has announced that it has not changed its stance on the IP project.
A Pakistani delegation, led by the ministers of petroleum and water and power, visited Washington in the second week of November 2013 and asked US authorities to exempt the IP pipeline from sanctions. However, the US did not give any assurances.
Under the project, Pakistan will initially import 750 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd), which can be extended to one billion cubic feet. The Balochistan government wants 250 mmcfd for consumption at the Gwadar Port, which will prompt the central government to seek increased supplies.
PAC is not against the government’s privatisation plan as its only concern is to protect national interest, says PAC chairman Syed Khursheed Shah. PHOTO: RIAZ AHMED/EXPRESS/FILE
ISLAMABAD:
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday showed apprehensions over the government’s move to sell 65 state-owned enterprises without even having a privatisation policy, exposing ill-planning that could cast doubts over the process.
PAC is not against the government’s privatisation plan as its only concern is to protect national interest, said Syed Khursheed Shah of Pakistan Peoples Party, who is chairman of PAC.
Shah said without a privatisation policy, how could the performance of the government and the Privatisation Commission (PC) be judged.
PAC had called Secretary Privatisation Amjad Ali Khan to brief the parliament’s accountability arm about the government’s privatisation plan. It termed the briefing unsatisfactory and sought more details from the government.
The issue of the privatisation policy was raised by the Auditor General of Pakistan Akhtar Buland Rana. But the secretary privatisation could not share the government’s privatisation policy.
“For us the Privatisation Ordinance (2000) is a Bible,” said Khan. However, PAC did not accept his reply.
Shah observed that the ordinance only provides the roadmap and is not a substitute for a policy.
To the dismay of the members, the secretary also admitted that the PC did not have the capacity to undertake the huge privatisation programme. Against 22 consultants that the PC had four years back, according to Khan, at present only six remained.
One of the reasons for the lack of capacity was that in the last five years the PC had become a dysfunctional body, he added.
Khan said the PC has entered into negotiations with some international financial institutions and was considering seeking $30 million in technical assistance to strengthen an institution that will undertake the most ambitious privatisation programme.
To reduce losses, increase receipts and reduce the government’s footprints, the PML-N government has committed to the International Monetary Fund to privatise 32 shortlisted entities in the next two years. These entities have been chosen out of 65 that have been cleared by the Council of Common Interests for privatisation.
PAC did not pass any adverse judgment against the government’s plan to sell state-owned entities. However, it recommended that non-profitable entities should be privatised first followed by profitable bodies.
PAC rejected a proposal to bar the government from privatising profitable entities. The proposal was floated by Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang of the PML-N. Shafqat Mahmood of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supported the government’s privatisation plan.
PAC members also questioned the capacity of the PC to achieve its objectives. The secretary admitted that the PC did not have the capacity to develop regulatory regimes to protect genuine interests of investors, consumers, taxpayers and the government.
He said the PC cannot act as a catalyst to attracting investment and liberating the government from micro management of the state-owned enterprises.
“What the PC can ensure at best is that privatisation is carried out in an open, fair and transparent manner,” said Khan while agreeing that a lot needs to be done to improve administrative affairs of the commission.
Khan said some of the core functions of the commission, enshrined in the Privatisation Ordinance of 2000, have not been invoked yet.
PAC also sought the curriculum vitae and reasons for choosing six private sector members on the PC Board who have been entrusted with the task to take forward the privatisation programme in a transparent manner.
PIA will not be sold on “as is basis” and the entity will be first restructured. The govt is going to set up a subsidiary of PIA for its core business which will eventually be privatised. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
The two immediate goals of ensuring Rs150 billion in privatisation proceeds by June this year to meet the budget deficit target and sell Pakistan International Airlines by the end of the year are unlikely to be met, said Mohammad Zubair, Chairman of Privatisation Commission, on Tuesday.
The deadline agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for privatising PIA could be changed, depending on prevailing circumstances and market dynamics, said Zubair while interacting with the journalists.
He was responding to a question whether the Privatisation Commission (PC) could achieve the December 2014 deadline set by the IMF.
Under the $6.7 billion IMF programme, the fund has asked Pakistan to appoint a financial adviser by the end of March and sell 26% shares of PIA to a strategic investor by end-December.
The PC board approved the hiring of a financial adviser last month. But the PC could not advertise for the expressions of interestsfor hiring the adviser as the All Pakistan Newspapers Society has blacklisted the federal government due to non-payment of dues.
“The government is committed to the IMF and the privatisation programme,” said Zubair, who vowed to convince the IMF to extend the December 2014 deadline, if needed.
He said PIA would not be sold on “as is basis” and the entity would be first restructured. The government is going to set up a subsidiary of PIA and its core business will be transferred to the subsidiary that will eventually be privatised.
He said the rest of the services of PIA would be shifted to PIA Holdings which the government would gradually privatise.
The PC was lacking the institutional capacity to undertake the huge privatisation programme but the targets were set which it would try to achieve, admitted Zubair. He said the institutional build-up and the privatisation programme would go side by side.
The government was advancing the most ambitious privatisation programme in the history of the country and in spite of stiff opposition it would push ahead, he added. Zubair, however, sought support of all political parties and the employee unions to keep the process on track.
He said in the next board meeting, the government would take up Faisalabad Electric Supply Company, Hyderabad Electric Supply Company and Muzaffargarh Thermal Power Station for appointment of financial advisers for privatisation.
He said if the process was transparent the question who was the buyer became irrelevant. He said there should be checks and balances but these controls should not hamper the privatisation process.
Zubair said the prime minister had asked him to ensure responsibility and given him the authority to bang the phone of any party leader who tried to influence the privatisation process.
Zubair disclosed that the Ministry of Finance had asked to generate Rs150 billion from the privatisation process before the end of the current fiscal year in June to achieve the budget deficit target.
“The PC is committed to achieving the target provided all goes well but it seems all is not going well,” he added.
For the current fiscal year, the government has set the budget deficit target at 5.8% of gross domestic product or Rs1.48 trillion. If the government fails to achieve this target either the IMF programme will be derailed or it will have to seek waiver from the IMF Executive Board, according to analysts.
Privatisation Secretary Amjad Ali Khan said according to internal assessments, the government can earn $850 million (Rs90 billion) by offloading 10% shares of Oil and Gas Development Company. By selling the remaining government shares in Habib Bank, $925 million (Rs98 billion) could be fetched, he added.
Similarly, Rs9.4 billion could be bagged by divesting 10% shares of Allied Bank Limtied and Rs34 billion by selling 20% shares of United Bank Limited, said Khan.
SEATTLE — Microsoft on Tuesday announced that Satya Nadella was its next leader, betting on a longtime engineering executive to help the company keep better pace with changes in technology.
The selection of Mr. Nadella to replace Steven A. Ballmer, which was widely expected, was accompanied by news that Bill Gates, a company founder, had stepped down from his role as chairman and become a technology adviser to Mr. Nadella.
John W. Thompson, 64, a member of the Microsoft board who oversaw its search for a new chief executive, became the company’s chairman, replacing Mr. Gates.
“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” said Mr. Gates, who remains a member of Microsoft’s board. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together.”
Nadella’s BioIn a statement, Mr. Nadella said, “Microsoft is one of those rare companies to have truly revolutionized the world through technology, and I couldn’t be more honored to have been chosen to lead the company.”
2013: Led the company's cloud computing efforts — a vital division as more businesses seek services housed in far-off data centers rather than run software themselves.
2011: Managed Microsoft's servers and cloud platform.
2007: Had technical oversight of Bing, the company's search engine, after Microsoft's failed bid for Yahoo. Was also in charge of the engineering for the company's advertising and related systems, as well as MSN.
2001: Helped manage specialized software products for small and midsize businesses.
In Mr. Nadella, Microsoft’s directors selected both a company insider and an engineer, suggesting that they viewed technical skill and intimacy with Microsoft’s sprawling businesses as critical for its next leader. It has often been noted that Microsoft was more successful under the leadership of Mr. Gates, a programmer and its first chief executive, than it was under Mr. Ballmer, who had a background in sales. Mr. Ballmer, 57, said in August that he was stepping down.
Mr. Nadella, 46, from Hyderabad, India, is only the third chief executive of Microsoft, an icon of American business that has struggled for position in big growth markets like mobile and Internet search. The company has correctly anticipated many of the biggest changes in technology — the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, to use two examples — but it has often fumbled the execution of products developed to capitalize on those changes.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Nadella’s technical background, along with the closer involvement of Mr. Gates in product decisions, will give the company an edge it lacked during the Ballmer years. Microsoft said in a statement that Mr. Gates will “devote more time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping technology and product direction.”
Relinquishing his role as chairman will allow Mr. Gates to spend over a third of his time with product groups at Microsoft, “substantially increasing my time at the company,” he said in a video made for the news of Mr. Nadella’s selection. Mr. Gates said that Mr. Nadella asked him to make the change in his duties at Microsoft.
“I think he’s the right person for the company right now,” Frank Artale, a former Microsoft manager who works with Ignition Partners, a venture capital firm in the Seattle area, said of the selection of Mr. Nadella. “A strong technical leader is truly needed there.”
Mr. Nadella is a contrast to Mr. Ballmer in other ways. Most recently the executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise businesses, Mr. Nadella peppers his conversations and speeches with technical buzzwords that people outside the industry would most likely find impenetrable.
Mr. Nadella, who has been married for 22 years and has three children, counts cricket and poetry among his hobbies. In an email to Microsoft employees on Tuesday morning, he wrote that he is “defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning.”
“I buy more books than I can finish,” he wrote. “I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things.”
Mr. Nadella showed ambition early in his career. He received degrees in engineering and computer science, then earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business while working full time at Microsoft. He flew to Chicago from Seattle to attend classes on the weekend, according to Steven Kaplan, a professor at the school who taught Mr. Nadella in a course on entrepreneurial finance and private equity.
“He is take charge, smart, but in a likable way,” Mr. Kaplan said, adding that Mr. Nadella received an A in the course.
Now, Mr. Nadella is known as a cerebral, collaborative leader with a low-key style that differs from Mr. Ballmer’s bombastic manner. While many executives within Microsoft tend to be polarizing figures, Mr. Nadella appears to be well liked in much of the company. Still, those who know Satya Nadella say that he is not a pushover as a boss.
“Managers have to keep proving themselves every day,” Mr. Artale said.
Mr. Nadella’s star at Microsoft rose considerably in the past several years as he took charge of the company’s cloud computing efforts, a business considered vital as more business customers choose to rent applications and other programs in far-off data centers rather than run software themselves.
For years, Microsoft did not pay enough attention to how the cloud — primarily through services offered by Amazon, its crosstown rival — was attracting the creativity of a new generation of developers. When he got control of the division that included Microsoft’s cloud initiatives, Mr. Nadella changed that. He began meeting with start-ups to hear more about what Microsoft needed to do to become more responsive to their needs.
“When you look at the most exciting things happening in tech, all the platform shifts happening and disruption — social, mobile, cloud — Microsoft has not even been part of the conversation until recently,” said Brad Silverberg, a Seattle-area investor and a former Microsoft executive. “With Satya’s leadership, Microsoft is doing interesting things in cloud.”
As chief executive of the entire 100,000-person company, Mr. Nadella has to grapple with a much broader set of challenges in markets in which he has little experience, like mobile devices. He inherits a deal to acquire Nokia’s mobile handset business, along with 33,000 employees, and a wide-ranging reorganization plan devised by Mr. Ballmer and still in progress.
In an interview in July, Mr. Nadella was supportive of the reorganization plan, which he predicted would allow Microsoft to adapt to changes in the market more quickly than in the past. “It’s not like our old structure didn’t allow us to do some of this,” he said. “The question is whether you can amplify.”
When Mr. Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992, it was still a scrappy, relatively small software company led by Mr. Gates that was just beginning its greatest years of growth. His familiarity with the company’s history and culture was said to have been an important factor in Mr. Gates’s comfort with Mr. Nadella as chief executive, according to someone briefed on the search for a new leader who asked for anonymity because the process was private.
But in an interview in April, he said the most important factor in Microsoft’s ability to remain a growing business in the future was its ability to become a player in what he called new paradigms in computing, like cloud computing.
“That is, you could say, the existential issue for us,” Mr. Nadella said.
“I think that with any new paradigm there will always be a couple of new players who come at it,” he continued. “But to me the thing that is perhaps more interesting and challenging, and gets me excited, is, hey, how can we renew ourselves?”
In his statement Tuesday, Mr. Nadella said: “The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly.”
* Brad Pitt as David Beckham It wouldn't come as a surprise to see the former England captain move into the film industry one day, after finally calling time on his playing career in the summer.
* Bruce Willis as Brad Friedel The all-action American would be the ideal candidate to play a film about the Tottenham goalkeeper, and not just because they are both follicly challenged. Willis has been around the block and back, playing numerous different hard-edged characters over the years, and the 42-year-old Spurs stalwart - who holds the record for the most consecutive Premier League appearances - would be a welcome addition to his list of roles.
*Leonardo Di Caprio as Fernando Torres Di Caprio's role in the box office hit Titanic secured his reputation as a Hollywood heartthrob, just like Torres was in the Premier League when he burst onto the scene at Liverpool. The American actor has starred in a number of other hits, but will struggle to ever hit the heights of his breakthrough role, just like the Spanish striker, who continues to underwhelm since his £50million move to Chelsea.
*Johnny Depp as Lionel Messi Given his versatility in a number of different roles, Depp is regarded as one of Hollywood's finest, and for that reason has been selected to play the best player in world football, Barcelona star Lionel Messi.
*George Clooney as Ryan Giggs Like the Manchester United veteran - who celebrates his 40th birthday this week - Clooney seems to get better with age, and is the ideal candidate for a leading role as the Old Trafford legend.
*Christian Bale as Gareth Bale Born in Wales and sharing the same surname, the Batman star is perhaps an obvious choice to play a lead role as the Real Madrid winger, having grown in stature over the past few years. Christian started out with a number of modest roles, but has now established himself as a leading name in Hollywood, while Gareth completed a world-record move to the Santiago Bernabeu after an impressive couple of seasons at Tottenham.
*Al Pacino as Sir Alex Ferguson Arguably the greatest actor in all of film history, 'The Godfather' is the only man that could play the Manchester United legend in a film about his life.
The attacking midfielder is eagerly anticipating this week's derby and is determined to make amends for last season's cup defeat
Isco says Real Madrid have a score to settle with Atletico Madrid after last year's lost Copa del Rey final defeat to Diego Simeone's side.
The Santiago Bernabeu side host their city-rivals at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday evening for the first-leg of their semi-final tie, following their 2-1 defeat after extra-time last season.
And the creative midfielder is hopeful los Blancos will emerge victorious this time around and make amends for last season's surprise defeat.
"It will be very difficult but we are very keen to get to the final and settle the unfinished business with Atletico after what happened last year," the 21-year-old was quoted as saying by AS.
"It's going to be a wonderful cup tie, but it's going to be very tight. We hope the semi-final with Atletico goes our way.
"We believe that right now we are in the best form we have shown this season. Now the biggest games of the season are coming up but we are prepared to take them on."
Madrid were beaten 1-0 by Atleti in La Liga earlier this season.
