Professor Dr. Anwar Ali Shah G. Syed, Director, IBA, University of Sindh, Jamshoro introduced the guest speaker Prof. Dr. Khowaja Amjad Saeed. The Director. IBA also highlighted the role of Export in streamlining the world economy. He said the lower trend in export of world has brought the low income countries (which consists of 65 countries of the world) to a point where entire nations are doomed to economic stagnation, unable to meet their own essential needs and bogged down in monstrous debts. Extension efforts also required if genuine changes are to be made and a new world economic order established. Our nation lags behind in export. To put the country on road to progress we have to believe on this slogan export led growth as export is the main engine of the economic growth. He further added that unless other nations achieve their robust socio-economic growth the global economy will languish. Yet the industrial nations also need growth elsewhere in order to lift their own.

Prof. Dr. Khowaja Amjad Saeed delivered an informative and motivating lecture He said that the idea for naming the topic of lecture "Export World Cup" is on the ground that world cup terminology has become enormously popular. So far several cricket and football world cups have been played. A long way is needed for our country to be a big winner of export world cup. This lecture aimed at motivating all of us in SAARC region to receive a wake up call and respond positively to start our preparations to achieve great heights in export performance in global dimension to strengthen our foreign exchange reserves and develop a solid capacity to finance imports and achieve favorable balance of trade — industrialization employment creation higher standards of living strong macro and micro indicators. He showed a table depicting global export trends:

Year	US$ billion	%age
2001	6,163	91
2000	6,350	94
1998	6,767	100
Source: Excepted from World Development Reports 2001, 2002, 2003

It will be apparent from the above data that declining trend persisted in the last three years. There is a need to expand global exports to reap the consequential benefits. Efforts must be made to boost global exports. He further added that several regional blocks exist in the world to make contribution in the global exports such blocks are OECD (High Income Economies), NAFTA. G-8, D-8 and SAARC. OECD block contributes the most in global exports. The contribution of SAARC especially needs to be augmented. The developing countries in general and SAARC countries in particular should adopt Export Led Growth or some other model to achieve high export levels. This noble effort will result in an accelerated approach to economic development. Consequently employment will be promoted, skills will be enhanced and social justice backed with higher standard of living will be the consequential result.

The worthy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sindh Mr. Mazharul Haq Siddiqui. in his presidential remarks that lecture was informative and illuminating which showed us round the global export. He further said that the real resource on earth is Human Resource and we have to make heavy investment in education to have a sustainable development and reinvigorating growth. The meager contribution of our country in global export gives us a depressing warning. We must work hard to add more weight and a value in our quality of product. As far as the improvement of quality is concerned the sky is limit.

The seminar ended with the vote of thanks offered by the Director, IBA.

FAYSAL BANK'S NEW BRANCH

Faysal Bank opened its eighth branch in Karachi on November 28, 2002 at Shahrah-e-Faisal. The branch was inaugurated by the President of the Bank, Mr. Farook Bengali.

Faysal Bank's Shahrah-e-Faisal branch will be catering to the adjoining residential and commercial areas. This branch will be offering all retail banking services to its customers such as cash deposit and withdrawal, local and foreign currency remittances, travellers cheques, locker facilities and an array of high value current, savings and term deposit accounts. Like other branches of Faysal Bank, this branch too will be open for business between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. On Fridays the Bank opens again after Namaz from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Faysal Bank pays profit on all its savings accounts on a daily balance basis. This means that every rupee in these accounts earns a profit daily with the result that the customer gets more profit in absolute terms than at other banks that mostly calculate profit on a minimum balance for the month basis. This branch will also be offering consumer finance facilities such as car lease and consumer household item leases to its clientele.

While inaugurating the branch, Mr. Bengali said that Faysal Bank is a known and trusted name in the market, the first Bank to introduce the concept of Islamic Banking to the country. He said that the highly professional and dedicated staff of the Bank made it what it is today — one of the leading banks in Pakistan.

This new branch is very contemporary in outlook portraying the Banks flexibility to changing market expectations and tastes and seems geared to offer high value, high tech service to its customers.

EMIRATES INTRODUCES SECOND SHANGHAI SERVICE

Trade between the Gulf and mainland China has been given a further boost with the provision of Emirates SkyCargo's second weekly freighter flight between Dubai and Shanghai. Emirates plans to launch a passenger service on the route next August.

Both cities are leading commercial centres and the flights provide shippers and freight forwarders at both ends of the route with fast, convenient connections into each other's markets.

IMPROVING TREND IN GOLD DEMAND

The adverse factors affecting gold demand in the first half of 2002 had a reduced impact in the third quarter, the World Gold Council said recently in its quarterly review, Gold Demand Trends, Gold demand in Q3 remained below year-earlier levels in tonnage terms but the rate of decline was halved to 7% from the 14% experienced in the first half-year. In dollar terms demand was 6% higher than a year earlier and the fall in the dollar value of gold offtake which started in 1997 appears to have halted.

PAKISTAN: Pakistan demand continues to rise In contrast to India, demand in Pakistan continued to rise in Q3, being almost one third (up 32% year-on-year) higher than the depressed level of a year earlier. The price in Pakistan rupees stabilised after climbing through much of the year while the economy remained relatively buoyant. As in India a higher than normal level of purchases was funded by exchange and selling back for cash was also high.

ABN AMRO GLOBAL TRADE & ADVISORY WINS EUROMONEY AWARD FOR BEST TRADE FINANCE SITE

ABN AMRO Bank Global Trade & Advisory's global trade portal, www.maxtrad.com, has been awarded the 2002 euromoney.com internet award for best bank site for trade finance. ABN AMRO was one of several top-tier banks whose trade finance websites were evaluated on the basis of efficiency, reliability, functionality, and client usage. The MaxTrad portal, which provides corporate and financial institutions alike with access to a suite of online trade solutions, services and support, was judged to offer the best functionality in the market.

APTMA APPRECIATES REDUCTION IN EXPORT REFINANCE RATE

Mr. Anjum Saleem, Chairman APTMA has appreciated the decision of the State Bank of Pakistan to reduce the Export Refinance Rate by 1% i.e. from 8% to 7%. According to Mr. Anjum Saleem, this decision will have a positive impact on the Textile Exports of the Country which presently account for over 67% of Pakistan's total exports. As a result of ease in the availability of Export Refinance through the banking system at a reduced markup, the competitiveness of the textile exports of Pakistan is expected to improve. Chairman, Aptma reiterated that the government should provide all genuine facilitating incentives to the Textile Industry so that it can rapidly increase its share in the competitive global textile market.