South Asia Investor Review

Beautiful Hollywood star Angelina Jolie is known for her international humanitarian work as the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. A winner of multiple awards including one Oscar and three Golden Globes, she is among the highest paid actors in the world. Jolie is currently visiting Pakistan to bring global attention to the immense suffering caused by devastating floods in the country, particularly in its southern Sindh province.   Angelina Jolie Pakistan is dealing with the aftermath of the  worst floods  in the country's history. Over 1500 Pakistanis are dead. About 33 million people in two southern provinces are homeless. Sindh is inundated with 784% of normal rainfall so far this year. Balochistan has seen 522% of average rainfall. Both provinces suffered their worst ever heatwave prior to this unprecedented deluge. Nearly a million livestock have been lost, over two million acres of farmland is underwater and 90% of the crops in Sindh and Balochistan have been d...

Pakistan is dealing with the aftermath of the worst floods in the country's history.  Over a thousand Pakistanis are dead. About 33 million people in two southern provinces are homeless. Sindh is inundated with 784% of normal rainfall so far this year. Balochistan has seen 522% of average rainfall. Both provinces suffered their worst ever heatwave prior to this unprecedented deluge. Nearly a million livestock have been lost, over two million acres of farmland is underwater and 90% of the crops in Sindh and Balochistan have been damaged. This is a massive humanitarian crisis. Pakistan can not deal with it alone. Pakistan Flood 2022 Map. Source: DW Satellite Image of Qambar, Sindh Before/After Floods 2022. Source: NASA Satellite Image of Shikarpur, Sindh Before/After Floods 2022. Source: NASA Balochistan and Sindh Worst Affected by Monsoon22. Source: The Economist Pakistan's population is about 2.6% of the world population. The nation contributes less than 1% of the global ...

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently announced a  new housing construction incentives  package that includes down payment assistance and expansion of home loans portfolios by commercial banks at discounted rates for affordable housing for the poor. Shariah compliant financing is also included in it. Pakistan’s mortgage finance to GDP ratio is just 0.25%, among the lowest in the world, according to the  World Bank . The average for South Asia 3.4%.  New housing drives a large number of sectors of the economy from  banking  and  building materials  to  construction  and  manufacturing  of furniture and  home appliances . These incentives are designed to stimulate the economy, boost employment and deal with the growing shortage of affordable housing in the country. Naya Pakistan Housing: Pakistan government's Naya Pakistan housing program offers Rs. 33 billion in direct subsidies for down payments for...

Guest Post by Rashid Ahmad You should go back and visit. You would be surprised! Pakistan in your mind may be frozen in time, but real Pakistan has moved on. Everything has changed. Pakistani Capital Islamabad You will find both familiarity and alienness there. It would appear to you like a dream. Or perhaps like being on Star Trek Holodeck, where things are familiar but there are new actors on the deck, and you are bit of a stranger. First thing that would hit you would be the increase in population.  Too many people  every where, compared to the time you left Pakistan. Some areas that were farms and free spaces when you were there would now be occupied by  new housing developments . The physical appearances would have changed. There would not be any complete transformation to prosperity, but new buildings replacing the old ones, and  new motorways , would change the physical reality. You would find distances have shrunk. The places that seemed far ...

Real estate developers have so far built over 250 gated communities across Pakistan in response to rising demand from upwardly mobile Pakistanis . Eden Housing Gated Community in Lahore, Pakistan These communities cater to insatiable demand for world-class and well-appointed housing with modern infrastructure including well-built wide roads and reliable supply of water and electricity. Additionally, they offer various state-of-the-art amenities such as schools, hospitals, mosques, restaurants, theaters, shopping malls and parks located within secure communities, according to a report by Adrian Bishop, editor of Opp.Today . Gated communities are being offered at multiple price points and payment plans that suit not just the rich but the middle class buyers as well. They offer condos (flats), townhouses and single-family homes on lot sizes ranging from 125 square yards to  2000 square yards. These communities are fueling a construction boom in Pakistan . Defense Housing ...

Housing construction is one of the largest sectors of most major economies in the world. In the United States, for example, housing is a significant contributor to the American economy, providing millions of Americans with jobs and generating hundreds of billions of dollars of economic output each year. It is also an important source of wealth building. Beyond economic measures, homeownership and adequate rental housing also contributes to society. The construction and sale of new homes make direct contribution to GDP, based on the value of the housing built. However, the sales of existing homes do not enter into the calculation of the nation’s domestic output, just as a used car sales do not get entered because the transaction does not represent a new production. However, purchases related to the transaction of existing home sale do get included in the GDP. For example, all payments for services rendered, such as real estate agent commissions, home inspection, attorney, and loa...

The US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the weekend seizure of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). While some have criticized the US regulators' handling of the mortgage crisis, there is almost unanimous agreement that the bailout of the two mortgage giants was absolutely necessary to prevent a major, worldwide financial markets collapse. The cost of this bailout to the US taxpayers is estimated to be at least $200b. Who are Fannie and Freddie? Both are government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that guarantee or own more than $5 trillion of mortgages, about 50% of all the mortgages in the United States. Both have suffered heavy losses in the ongoing real estate bust in the United States. Both have suffered heavy losses in the ongoing real estate bust in the United States. Home prices have been falling and many homeowners have lost most or all of their equity in their homes. In many cases, the outstandi...