Category: Explainers
-
Pakistan’s Pension Crisis: The Rs 1.5 Trillion Liability Nobody Is Talking About Pakistan’s federal pension bill crossed Rs 1 trillion in FY2025 and is growing at 25% annually — nearly four times the rate of GDP growth. The unfunded liability behind that annual payment is measured in the tens of trillions. A reform launched in…
-
The $38 Billion Remittance Machine: How Saudi Arabia and the UAE Fund Pakistan’s External Stability Two Gulf monarchies collectively determine whether Pakistan’s balance of payments holds together. That is not a bilateral relationship. It is a structural dependency. By Mehmood ul Hasan Qadir Economist & Financial Analyst | Dubai, UAE Executive Summary Pakistan received $38.3…
-
Pakistan’s Textile Sector: 60% of Exports, One Structural Weakness, and a Shrinking Window Pakistan exports $17.88 billion worth of textiles annually and has done so, with minor variation, for a decade. Bangladesh, starting from a smaller base and with no domestic cotton, now exports $39.35 billion. The gap is not explained by geography. By Mehmood…
-
Real Estate as an Asset Class: Why Pakistani Capital Keeps Flowing Into Property Instead of Productive Investment Pakistan’s investment-to-GDP ratio fell to a 50-year low of 13.1% in 2024. Private sector credit to GDP stands at 11.98% — among the lowest in the world. Real estate, meanwhile, absorbs an estimated 70% of transactions in black…
-
Raast and the Payment Revolution: How Pakistan’s Instant Payment Infrastructure Is Changing Financial Behaviour Pakistan built one of the world’s fastest-growing instant payment systems in four years. It then discovered that infrastructure and adoption are different problems entirely. By Mehmood ul Hasan QadirEconomist & Financial Analyst | Dubai, UAE The first trillion rupees processed through…
-
What Is the Current Account and Why Does Pakistan Keep Running a Deficit? Every Pakistani feels the consequences of the current account — in the price of fuel, the value of the rupee, and how often the country needs an IMF bailout. Here is how it actually works. By Mehmood ul Hasan Qadir Economist &…
-
Pakistan and the IMF — What Every Pakistani Should Know — an Economy explainer by Pakistan Ledger Economy Pakistan has gone to the IMF 23 times since 1958. The latest deal is worth $7 billion. Most Pakistanis have heard the news — but few know what it actually means for their lives. Here is a…
-
Pakistan has lost six in every ten rupees to the dollar in seven years. The rupee’s slide is not a mystery — it is the product, and sometimes consequence, of five structural failures. Pakistan Ledger unpacks each one. By Pakistan Ledger | May 21, 2026 | Economics & Finance The basic reason A currency falls…