July 02 - 08, 2001

'Pakistan is one of the fastest growing markets in the region' — DHL Director

DHL's Director South East Asia Area Mr. Bryan Jamison speaking at a dinner organized by the company's Pakistan office said, "Pakistan is one of the fastest growing markets in the region for DHL over the last six months. At a time when there is a global economic slowdown due to the technology sector, Pakistan has shown remarkable resilience by showing an increase in business." Area Director South Asia Indo China Malcolm Rees was also present on the occasion.

The two directors regularly visit Pakistan to review the performance and strategies of DHL local office here, as well as evaluate areas where capacity building of the management is required and interact with top clients in order to get feedback on service being provided along with other related issues and apprise them with the latest developments taking place in the Company.

Commenting on the growth of DHL in Pakistan Jamison said, We are very optimistic about the growth potential in Pakistan with the industry growing at around 15%. Our own growth as a Company in this market is presently exceeding 20%.

While talking about exports from Pakistan Malcolm Rees said, "The latest initiatives taken by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) in increasing the exports shows that there is commitment towards that end from the highest level. Furthermore as a testimony of our faith in the potential of this market we have invested over US$ 2 million over the last 3 years in developing channels for direct shipment of deliveries world over rather than simply forwarding them to a HUB for onward movement.

DHL Worldwide Express is the world's leading air express service company, linking more than 85,000 destinations in 228 countries and territories. Formed in 1969, DHL now carries more than 140 million shipments every year with its extensive fleet of over 260 aircraft and 17,000 delivery vehicles for over one million clients worldwide. In the Asia-Pacific region, DHL currently serves 40 countries and territories, employs more than 17,000 people, and operates over 3,400 offices and 4,000 transport vehicles.

Compaq and Intel agreement

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) and Intel Corporation announced a multi-year agreement that accelerates availability of next-generation enterprise servers based on the Intel® ItaniumTM processor family. Compaq will transfer key enterprise processor technology to Intel and consolidate its entire 64-bit server family on the Itanium architecture.

The companies will work together to expand marketplace adoption of the Itanium processor family. Compaq will build on that high-volume platform to provide its customers with unparalleled price/performance.

Today's technology and marketing agreement joins Compaq's advanced systems engineering expertise and large installed base with Intel's leading microprocessor design and world-class volume manufacturing capabilities. Compaq will develop the broadest family of server products — from supercomputers to web servers — that all operate on a single microprocessor architecture, the Itanium architecture. Compaq customers will benefit from the most advanced system designs at the lowest possible cost with complete investment protection.

53rd Annual General Meeting of MCB

The 53rd Annual General Meeting of the Muslim Commercial Bank Limited was held at its Registered Office in Islamabad, which was presided over by Mian Mohammad Mansha, approved payment of a Cash Dividend of 7.5% and 20% Bonus Shares to Bank Shareholders for the year 2000.

The Board of Directors' of the Muslim Commercial Bank Limited at its meeting held at Lahore on May 29, 2001 had recommended to the Annual General Meeting that in view of Operating Profit of Rs. 2.48 billion for the year 2000, which was 58% higher than Operating Profit of the year 1999, that 10% Interim Bonus, 10% Final Bonus and 7.5% Cash Dividend be paid out to the shareholders.

Mian Mohammad Mansha, Chairman of MCB, in his annual review remarked that despite country's economy demonstrating mixed trends of sectoral economic growth, the Bank had come out with a sound balance sheet for the year 2000, surpassing the performance in many segements of its operations.

The deposits with MCB, a key indicator of public trust in the bank's operation, stood at Rs. 136 billion registering an increase of Rs. 6 billion over the past year, despite lower PLS rates on deposits and limited opportunities to deploy funds in the banking sector. The deposits also saw a drain from the banks in the second half of the year 2000, resulting from the documentation drive of the government. Another key indicator of bank's successful operations was Advances which stood on December 31, 2000 at Rs. 90.9 billion, showing an increase of 27% as compared to figure at the end of year 1999.

In its drive to recover defaulted loans, the bank management recovered Rs. 1.97 billion compared to Rs. 1.2 billion in 1999, showing a handsome increase of 52.7% over the preceding year.

Muslim Commercial Bank Limited also honoured by the World renowned Financial Magazine "Euronomey", with the prestigious "Euromoney Award for Excellent 2000" and MCB was declared as "Best Domestic bank in Pakistan".

The MCB Chief informed the meeting that MCB Management had continued to emphasize on new products, which yielded positive results. MCB continued to be the leader in Pakistan in the sale of Rupee Travellers Cheques for the past decade. In the year 2000 the sale of RTCs recorded an unprecedented 55% increase over the year 1999. RTCs operations, he stated were now backed by a hgih-tech tele-verification system ensuring improved risk management in over 900 MCB branches.

Another area of leadership of MCB have been its ATM operations with over 80 ATMs located in 12 cities of Pakistan and 125 On Line branches, MCB is undoubtedly the industry leader in ATM operations also. Similarly MCB-ATM Master Card in co-ordination with Maestro and Cirrus networks, has become a global service.

yet another achievement of MCB in the Information Technology advance, has been MCB ATM Switch — MNET. The LT. Group of MCB has been able to create largest network for secured electronic financial transactions in Pakistan. It is a matter of pride for MCB that local branches of six reputed International banks were now connected to the MCB network.

Mian Mansha disclosed, MCB had also formed an Islamic Banking Unit, which was reviewing various Islamic product options. He pointed out that MCB was investing heavily in acquisition, training and development of its Human Resources for this purpose. Besides two staff colleges in Karachi and Lahore, another staff college is also being established at Islamabad. MCB, he added had a policy of acquiring management trainees from reputable institutions, besides exposure of employee to new and better Courses and Seminar to improve their over-all skills.

Prompt attention is also being paid to make its three Operating Wings i.e. Corporate, Investment Banking and Commercial Banking Group, more efficient, to ensure prompt and secure service to its customers.

The construction of the bank's Principal Office and Pakistan's tallest building, the 27 story high MCB Towers was progressing on schedule. Mian Mohammad Mansha hoped that as a result of construction of this building all departments of MCB in Karachi would be housed under one roof to ensure prompt disposal of various related issues.

Concluding, Mian Mansha hoped that MCB was now well positioned to operate effectively in the changing economic scenario of the country and the bank would continue to broaden its customer base, harness the growth strength of MCB brand to expand the IT platform to provide value based service to its customers.

Hubco's new CE takes charge

The newly appointed Chief Executive of Hub Power Company Limited, Vincent R Harris has taken charge, replacing S Khurshid Husain, Hubco announced last Tuesday.

Siddiqsons Group

Siddiqsons Denim Mills Ltd. gets accreditation from LYCRA® ASSURED, a new global partnership initiative from Dupont. Siddiqsons with state of the art technology, prevailing infrastructure, necessary expertise and resources claims over 50% of the total exports out of Pakistan to almost all of the five continents.

Siddiqsons group has approximately 20 million dollar export of Denim, Grey Fabric, Drill, Processed Fabric, Tents — Tarpaulins and Tinplates. "Siddiqsons, the pioneers of Denim in the region, are once again proud to be the trailblazers in "stretch denim" using LYCRA and duly certified by DUPONT," said Mr. Tariq Rafi, CEO of the group and added that the group is committed to earn the much needed foreign exchange for the country and to project the country's image by supplying quality material to the world community.

The LYCRA® Accredited Mill Network is a key component of LYCRA® ASSURED, which help mills, garment designers and manufacturers, retailers, and ultimately consumers to get the full benefit of the enhancement that LYCRA® brings to apparel.

The LYCRA® Accredited Mill network involves a new level of technical and sales collaboration between DuPont and selected mill partners. Key elements include: (1) Full DuPont technical support to ensure consistently high manufacturing and quality control standards for the production of fabrics enhanced with LYCRA®; and (2) Self-certification of fabrics enhanced with LYCRA® and ready access to be hang tags and other identity materials, enabling participating mills to leverage the power of LYCRA® brand.

WAPDA raises Rs. 5.0 billion through bonds

WAPDA raised Rs. 5.0 billion for its Ghazi Brotha Project through floatation of 9th Issue of its bonds. The signing ceremony for floatation of bonds on 29th June was also attended by Senior Executive of Habib Bank, United Bank, National Bank, Bank of Punjab and First Women Bank, First Credit and Discount Corporation (FCDC) and ABN Amro Bank.

Mr. Javed Nizam, General Manager Finance, signed the agreements on behalf of WAPDA.

WAPDA had appointed First Credit and Discount Corporation (FCDC) and ABN Amro Bank to act as structuring advisors of the issue. FCDC, ABN Amro Bank, Habib Bank, United Bank and National Bank of Pakistan acted as co-arrangers. FCDC has been appointed as Trustee of the issue on behalf of the investors.

In less than a year it was second successful floatation of bonds by WAPDA. The 8th bonds issue of Rs. 6.6 billion was floated and subscribed in September last. It is for the first time that all major banks in Pakistan actively participated in a bond issue by a major public sector institution.

Another amount of Rs 1.0 billion is to by raised under the 9th bond issue after June, 2001, which has been kept for subscription by the non-banking institutions, employees funds, trusts, insurance companies and other organizations looking for viable investment avenues.

Mr. Imran Malik, MD, FCDC felt this floatation of bonds will add to availability of term debt securities which the market longed. He was of the opinion that with this, other issuers will be motivated to bring similar bond/TFC issues for financing long term industrial and infrastructure projects.

The trust reposed in WAPDA by major financial institutions is reflective of its continuing progress and financial strength.

Mr. Javed Nizam informed that with floatation of 9th bond issue WAPDA has raised a total amount of Rs. 37.0 billion through its various bonds issues. It has been servicing all the bonds issues in accordance with their repayment schedules without default or delay, he added.

Two book launchings on July 3 at Press Club

Urdu journalist and short story writer Maqsood Elahi Sheikh's new novelette "Sheesha toot jaega" will be launched along with his compilation "Makhzan" at the Press Club on Tuesday, 03 July, 2001. at 06 p.m. The Vice Chancellor University of Karachi. Dr. Zafar Saeed Saifi will launch the "Makhzan". It is a collection of 36 stories of Urdu writers based in the United Kingdom, together with reviews by 12 noted Pakistani critics.

M. E. Sheikh's novelette will be launched by the noted novelist Shaukat Siddiqui. Hassan Abadi of the literary committee, Press Club will conduct the proceedings and Meraj Jami will issue both the books for press reviews.

Masood Hashmi honoured with Leadership Award

Peter Hamilton, Executive Vice President - Worldwide & Regional Director Asia Pacific presented "The Harrison K. McCann Leadership Award" to Mr. S. Masood Hashmi, Deputy Managing Director, Orient McCann-Erickson, Pakistan.

The Harrison K. McCann Leadership Award is the highest award conferred on any individual by McCann Erickson Worldwide in recognition of outstanding contribution to the advertising profession. The citation read out at an impressive ceremony, in Shanghai, China, highlighted Mr. Masood Hashmi's dynamic contribution to the field of advertising in Pakistan and in this region.

The Award conferred on Mr. S. Masood Hashmi has earned Pakistan a place of distinction in the world community of advertising. Orient McCann-Erickson is Pakistan's largest advertising agency, servicing the country's premium national and multinational clients.