Pakistan says held productive trade talks in Washington
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said it held productive trade talks with the US in Washington on Friday to advance economic cooperation, according to a statement from the South Asian country's finance ministry. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb met US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the statement said.
'Both sides expressed satisfaction with the progress in enhancing trade and economic ties, a cornerstone of Pakistan-US bilateral relations,' the statement added. It said Aurangzeb emphasized that the US remained Pakistan's largest trading partner. Both sides expressed optimism that ongoing trade talks would yield positive outcomes, benefiting the economies of both countries, the finance ministry said. Pakistan was optimistic that the trade talks would conclude in a week's time after a virtual meeting between Aurangzeb and Lutnick late last month.
The negotiations, focused on reciprocal tariffs, are part of a broader push to reset economic ties at a time of shifting geopolitical alignments and Pakistan's efforts to avoid steep US duties on exports.
Pakistan faces a 29 percent tariff on exports to the US under President Donald Trump's measures to target countries with large trade surpluses with the US. Pakistan's surplus was around $3 billion in 2024. To offset the imbalance and ease tariff pressures, Islamabad has offered to import more US goods, including crude oil, and to open up investment opportunities through concessions for US firms in Pakistan's mining sector. US-Pakistan relations saw a major boost when Trump hosted Pakistan's army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House last month in an unprecedented meeting. – Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kuwait Times
21 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Who makes laundry smell nice? Meet the professional ‘noses'
In the laboratories of German fragrance and flavors giant Symrise, a citrus scent clings to the lab coats of trainees -- 'noses' who are learning the art of making things smell good. These busy heroes of the world of smells and aromas shape the connection millions of consumers have with everyday items. While at high-end perfume labels, olfactory artists create scents for luxury body sprays, Symrise's experts work on everyday products that might range from mint-flavored toothpaste to barbeque chips. Smell, a powerful sense that can trigger emotions and memories, and aroma often decide which food or beverage, cleaning or personal hygiene product ends up in the shopping cart. At Symrise's headquarters in Holzminden, a quiet town south of Hanover, each day at the company's in-house perfumery school begins the same way: sniffing out scents from dozens of tiny bottles while blindfolded. 'It's just like tuning a musical instrument before you play,' said Alicia De Benito Cassado, a 32-year-old former professional pianist from Spain. Her career switch into scent development was a natural step: she made her own perfumes as a teenager to match the poetry and music that she wrote. 'For me, not everything has to smell good,' she said. 'The horror of smell also helps us discover ourselves.' But commercial clients demand something different, De Benito Cassado added. 'In the end, we need to create scents that are strong, beautiful, powerful -- and affordable.' A perfume oil formula is produced in a mixing room at the Symrise company in Holzminden, central Germany. Vials containing dissolved raw materials used to develop perfume oil formulas are seen in a mixing room at the Symrise company. Junior perfumer Attiya Setai prepares a perfume oil formula in a mixing room at the Symrise company. Junior perfumers (from left) Attiya Setai, Shangyun Lyu and Alicia de Benito Cassado hold smell strips which are used to evaluate fragrances in a mixing room at the Symrise company, where perfume oil formulas are developed, in Holzminden, central Germany.--AFP photos Production supervisor Uwe Gross closes a mixing container at the Symrise company. Raw material is weighed in a vial on a scale to produce a perfume oil formula in a mixing room at the Symrise company. Junior perfumer Shangyun Lyu smells a smell strip which is used to evaluate fragrances at the Symrise company. Professional sniffers Being a 'nose' is a full-time job and comes with a three-year training program. The smell of a fabric softener can be composed of 80 compounds, far more than in a premium body perfume, and the best noses can make out over 1,000 different odors while blindfolded. Shangyun Lyu, 31, came from China to study at the school and says that a professional sniffer can get by with knowing about 500 scents. Being able to break down odors into their chemical components is key. 'As a kid, I just smelled jasmine or gardenia as flowers,' he said. 'Now, I recognize the chemicals: it's a blend of many elements.' Students weigh ingredients down to the milligram, mix, smell, and start over, often by replicating existing smells to understand their structure and then innovate from there. 'When developing perfume, it is very important that several people smell it,' said 56-year-old master perfumer Marc vom Ende, head of the school. 'We all perceive smell differently.' 'Nose has the final say' Pleasant smells cannot come at any cost, and the rules of the game change over time. Lilial, a chemical once prized for its floral and sweet Lily-of-the-Valley notes, has been banned in the European Union since 2022 over fears it can cause skin irritation and damage the reproductive system. Fragrances applied directly to the body have stricter regulations than detergents, said 27-year-old South African trainee Attiya Setai. 'We're more restricted in raw materials and must replace banned ingredients with new compliant ones,' she said. Tastes also vary across global markets, with Shangyun pointing to the example of Chinese shampoos that sell well with a young clientele there but would struggle in Europe. 'Something old-fashioned in one country can be new elsewhere,' he said. Cost also enters the equation. Symrise extracts aromatic compounds from wood resin, a by-product of the paper industry, in a move 'that makes both economic and environmental sense', said vom Ende. It is hard to be a nose. About 500 perfumers work in the industry and 80 of them at Symrise, which has a workforce of 13,000. The company markets about 30,000 products to clients ranging from confectioners to pet food manufacturers and suncream makers. Symrise's competitors include DSM-Firmenich, headquartered in both Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as Givaudan, another Swiss firm. Artificial intelligence increasingly plays a role, with computer programs predicting which fragrances will hit the mark. Still, the machines cannot -- yet -- smell, even if they can understand speech and read text. 'We're supported by AI,' vom Ende said. 'But the nose has the final say'.—AFP
Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Kuwait Times
Somalia donors losing faith as Al-Shabaab insurgency surges
Govt faces a perfect storm of declining global support and demoralized army NAIROBI: Despite billions of dollars in international support, Somalia's army has melted in the face of a months-long offensive by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab insurgency, and donors are running out of patience. Using hundreds of fighters and a vehicle packed with explosives for a suicide attack, Al-Shabaab retook the town of Moqokori on July 7, the latest in a wave of defeats this year for the government. It has given them a strategic geographical position to launch attacks into the Hiiraan region, but it was also a powerful symbolic victory over a local clan militia that had been the government's 'best fighting force' against Al-Shabaab, according to Omar Mahmood of the International Crisis Group. Somalia's government has been battling the Islamist militant group since the mid-2000s and its fortunes have waxed and waned, but now faces a perfect storm of declining international support, a demoralized army and political infighting. The government relied on local militias, known as 'Macwiisley', for a successful campaign in 2022-23, taking some 200 towns and villages from Al-Shabaab. But the insurgents' counter-offensive this year has seen them regain some 90 percent of their lost territory, estimates Rashid Abdi of Sahan Research, a think tank. Towns that were supposed models of stabilization, like Masaajid Cali Gaduud and Adan Yabal, have fallen. Three bridges along the Shebelle River, crucial to military supply lines, have been destroyed. 'The whole stretch from the north-west to the south-west of Mogadishu is now controlled largely by Al-Shabaab,' Abdi told AFP. The Macwiisley campaign collapsed, he said, because the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, known as HSM, 'was extremely inept at working with the clans', empowering some and not others based on political favoritism rather than military needs. 'The mobilization went well when the president came from Mogadishu to start the first phase of the offensive (in 2022). Everybody was heavily involved in the fighting... assisting the national army,' Mohamed Hassan, a local militia member in Hiiraan, told AFP. 'It's no longer the same because the leadership are no longer involved and there seems to be disorganization in how the community militias are mobilized,' he added. The Somali National Army has done little to stem the insurgents, unsurprising for a force 'still in development mode while trying to fight a war at the same time,' said Mahmood, the analyst. Its most effective arm, the US-trained 'Danab' commando unit, is better at killing militants than holding territory, and has suffered demoralizing losses to its officer corps, added Abdi. 'We are beginning to see an army that is not just dysfunctional, but losing the will to actually fight,' he said. The problems stem from the wider chaos of Somali politics, in which a kaleidoscope of clan demands have never resolved into anything like a national consensus. The government has vowed a renewed military push, but President Mohamud's focus has been on holding the country's first-ever one-man, one-vote election next year. That 'will not happen', said a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. Even in Mogadishu, where security is strongest, 'any polling station would get bombed,' he said. 'It's unfortunate that attention was shifted towards insignificant political-related matters which do not help security instead of focusing on strengthening the armed forces,' ex-president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed recently told reporters. Al-Shabaab has not launched a full assault on the capital, but has repeatedly demonstrated its presence. Pot-shots targeting the airport are at an all-time high, said the diplomat, and Mohamud narrowly survived an attack on his convoy outside the presidential palace in March. The group also controls much of the economy. 'It out-taxes the state. Its business tentacles spread everywhere,' said Abdi. 'It is one of the wealthiest insurgencies in Africa.' Meanwhile, the government's foreign backers are losing patience. The European Union and United States have poured well over $7 billion into Somali security — primarily various African Union-led missions — since 2007, according to the EU Institute for Security Studies. The previous AU mission ended in December, but had to be immediately replaced with a new one — with the quip-generating acronym AUSSOM — because Somali forces were still not ready to take over. — AFP
Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Kuwait Times
Over 80% of Tuvalu seeks Australian climate visa
SYDNEY: More than 80 percent of Pacific nation Tuvalu's population is seeking a landmark climate visa to live in Australia as rising seas lap at its shores, official figures showed Wednesday. Australia is offering visas to Tuvalu citizens each year under a climate migration deal Canberra has billed as 'the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world'. 'We received extremely high levels of interest in the ballot with 8,750 registrations, which includes family members of primary registrants,' the Australian high commission in Tuvalu said in a statement. The figure is equal to 82 percent of the country's 10,643 population, according to census figures collected in 2022. 'With 280 visas offered this program year, it means that many will miss out,' the commission said. One of the most climate-threatened corners of the planet, scientists fear Tuvalu will be uninhabitable within the next 80 years. Two of the archipelago's nine coral atolls have already largely disappeared under the waves. The figures were released hours before a landmark decision by the world's top court in The Hague laying out what legal obligations countries have to prevent climate change and whether polluters should pay up for the consequences. The case, which has been brought by Pacific nations, could reshape climate justice, with major impacts on laws around the world. Australia and Tuvalu signed the groundbreaking Falepili Union in 2024, part of Canberra's efforts to blunt China's expanding reach in the region. Under that pact, Australia opened a new visa category specially set aside for citizens of Tuvalu who will be selected at random. 'Australia recognizes the devastating impact climate change is having on the livelihoods, security, and wellbeing of climate vulnerable countries and people, particularly in the Pacific region,' Australia's foreign affairs department told AFP last month. 'This is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, providing a pathway for mobility with dignity as climate impacts worsen.' It will also provide Tuvaluans the choice to live, study and work in Australia. — AFP Tuvalu citizens, including those living outside the country, were eligible to be included in the ballot if they are aged over 18 and pay a Aus$25 fee (US$16). The visa deal has been hailed as a landmark response to the looming challenge of climate-forced migration. The Falepili pact commits Australia to defending Tuvalu in the face of natural disasters, health pandemics and 'military aggression'. 'For the first time, there is a country that has committed legally to come to the aid of Tuvalu, upon request, when Tuvalu encounters a major natural disaster, a health pandemic or military aggression,' Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo said at the time. 'Again, for the first time there is a country that has committed legally to recognize the future statehood and sovereignty of Tuvalu despite the detrimental impact of climate changed-induced sea level rise.' The agreement also gives Australia a say in any other defense pacts Tuvalu signs with other countries, raising concerns at the time that the Pacific nation was handing over its sovereignty. Tuvalu is one of just 12 states that still have formal diplomatic relations with Taipei rather than Beijing. – AFP
