NEW ALLIANCES, MARKETS AND ECONOMIES
A new world-order in the making
By Mehmood-Ul-Hassan Khan
The world has changed after the tragic event of September 11. Search for new friends, creation of new alliances and exploration of new markets and economies - all these activities are going on and on around the globe. 

Quality review committee: a success story
By Mohmmad Ashraf
With the abolition of Quality Related Market Prices (QRMP) for rice export the Quality Review Committee (QRC) has become inactive. Though, nothing in the speech suggested the abolition of Quality Related Benchmark System (QRBS), there is a general impression in the trade that QRC, the committee formulated to implement the QRBS, has ceased to exist. The REAP demand for creation of a Rice Board and its recent acceptance by the Commerce Minister, in principle, has further strengthened this impression.

Rating Round up
Publicly Notified Ratings by JCR-VIS Credit Rating Company LIMITED
Publicly Notified Ratings
by JCR-VIS Credit Rating Company
as on December 20, 2002

ECONOMIC HORIZON
Pakistan Perspective Challenges to the banking sector
The banking sector, stuck up with chronic issues of loan defaults, high cost of management and services, high interest rate charged from debtors and low interest rate paid on deposits and non-plus professionalism cannot meet new challenges unless these issues were addressed squarely. The story of these chronic issues is well known. It is embedded in the past history of banking sector which stemmed from the over stretched and overdone whimsical decision of the government in the early 1970s to nationalise private banks.

MEETING POINT
Why outsourcing may be good for your business
What is core to your business? If you are a manager working for an airline you might want to ask yourself: Is making meals for passengers essential to my business? Or, do I need to own and operate my fleet of vans and buses to ferry my employees from their homes to the airport? And after weighing the pros and cons of "making" versus "buying" you might come to the conclusion that, indeed, there are strong grounds for outsourcing both the catering and transport function to a third party as meal preparation and ground transportation are not part of an airline's core business. More likely than not, inviting competitive bids from private sector providers will reduce costs and enhance Return on Investment.

REFLECTION
Nonprofit sector: government policy and future issues
The objective of this paper is to examine the role played by government policy in fostering this process of growth of the nonprofit sector of Pakistan and to review the key issues faced by the sector at this time.

The brand-name fight is on
Label wars are raging. And the victors of the branding battles in China may differ completely from the list of people who have triumphed elsewhere. While Cartier and Christian Dior are dominant names in the designer-goods market in other countries in Asia, they are being outpaced by American label Playboy and British label Alfred Dunhill among the moneyed urban dwellers of China's best-known cities.

China's cultural perception
This is not to say that China's elite have no worries. There is high awareness of the potential environmental problems that the mainland faces. Since the government has long prevented the media from reporting any bad news on this subject, this looks like a clear sign that information is flowing more freely than in the past.

STOCK MARKET CONFIDENCE
News-CresBank Stock Market Confidence Barometer
Shaky but not bad
The level of investors' confidence in the stock market was noticed to decline during July 2002. This was portrayed by the News-CresBank Confidence Barometer that recorded a dip during the said month. The News-CresBank Confidence Barometer depicted investors' confidence at 46 per cent on an aggregate basis in 'very low to low' category. This was considerably lower than 40 per cent recorded during June. A week-to-week analysis reveal that the barometer went as high as 66 per cent ('High' category), which was in the 2nd week of the month. On the other hand, it was towards the end of the month that the barometer ebbed at 31 per cent managing to float above the 'very low' category.

The Stock Market Confidence Barometer developed by Vital Information Services Pvt. Ltd. is a unique instrument that expresses in percentage terms the level of investors' confidence prevailing at the Karachi Stock Exchange taking into account each and every share transaction. The model electronically tracks the number of shares traded (adjusted for free float) at the KSE along with their respective prices, to find out the exact movement of investors' money. Worldwide, the investors place their funds in other than safe-haven stocks, when they are confident of the prevailing economic and political situation. On the other hand, when they are not so confident of the economic and political developments, they transfer their funds from those comparatively risky items to the safe-havens. This phenomenon is the foundation of the Confidence Barometer.

-- M. Bilal Aftab

CORPORATE CORNER