South Asia Investor Review

As we enter the year 2026, it is time to review the year 2025 and wish you all Happy New Year 2026! May it bring peace, prosperity and happiness to all!!  The year 2025 saw Pakistan  defeat a brazen Indian attack  on its soil, while reviving its economy and fighting increasing terror. Pakistan's successful response to multiple serious challenges in 2025 helped significantly raise its geopolitical profile with improved ties with the United States and stronger relations with its friends in China, Russia and the Middle East. Pakistan’s GDP crossed the $400 billion mark in 2025. The year ended with Pakistani currency stable and the KSE-100, the key Pakistani stock market index,  achieving new record highs with over 50% annual return in US dollar terms for investors. Privatization efforts gained steam with the sale of the PIA, the debt-ridden money-losing state-owned national airline, to private Pakistani investors. The political issues between the rulers and the oppositi...

HS-1 is Pakistan's first hyper-spectral  satellite which is equipped with advanced hyperspectral imaging sensors capable of capturing data across hundreds of narrow spectral bands.  The satellite lifted off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on a Kinetica-1 rocket. It is expected to boost Pakistan's national capacities in areas such as precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, urban planning, and disaster management. Its high-resolution data will support improved resource management and strengthen Pakistan’s resilience to climate-related challenges.  Though the HS-1 satellite is primarily aimed at civilian applications, it will also have significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability for military applications. It is much more advanced than Pakistan's PRSS-1 satellite launched in 2018 which senses objects on earth in the optical RGB (Red-Green-Blue) range. The HS-1's high-resolution data will support improved resource manag...

A Pakistani astronaut is scheduled to be the first non-Chinese person to go to Tiangong, the Chinese Space Station, according to media reports. Last year, China put a Pakistani satellite ICUBE-Q aboard its historic Chiang’e 6 mission into the moon’s orbit, designed to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon. Weeks later, Beijing put another Pakistani communication satellite into orbit. The two sides have also announced that China’s Chang’e 8 moon lander mission in 2028 will carry a Pakistani rover to explore the moon's surface.  Space science is a lot more than rocket science. It goes well beyond building booster rockets for satellite launches. It includes various fields like physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, and engineering to study phenomena in space and collect and analyze data about activities on earth.  Pakistan-China space cooperation is yet another confirmation of the close and growing scientific ties between the two countries. Tens of...

The outgoing Biden Administration has announced additional new sanctions against Pakistani entities working on the nation's missile program. The latest round of sanctions includes the Islamabad-based National Development Complex (NDC) and three Karachi-based organizations: Akhtar and Sons Private Limited, Affiliates International and Rockside Enterprise. Explaining the decision, US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer accused Islamabad of having developed "increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors.”  “Candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States,” Finer added, as reported by  Reuters news agency . "They don't acknowledge our concerns. They tell us we are biased," said the second U.S. official, adding that Pakistani officials have wrongly implied that U.S. sancti...

India's recent  Chandrayaan 3  success has triggered serious soul searching among Pakistanis. They are asking: Can we explore space? Do we have the basic technical knowhow? Are there any serious rocket scientists among Pakistanis? The answer to all three questions is absolutely YES. Pakistan's NESCOM (National Engineering and Science Commission) has developed, tested and supported deployment of several solid and liquid fueled multi-stage rockets for the nation's highly advanced missile program. In multiple test flights conducted over the years, these NESCOM missiles have traveled long distances through space at hypersonic speeds to deliver payloads to their designated targets.  From Rehbar to Shaheen:   Pakistan has certainly come a long way from the Rehbar series of rockets tested by SUPARCO in the 1960s. With some investment of time and money, the NESCOM rockets designed for the military can be  repurposed  to launch satellites into space. But it has not ...

Iran has become the 9th member of the the elite group of nations capable of launching satellites into space. The other eight members of this exclusive club are Russia, United States, France, Japan, China, United Kingdom, India and Israel. The satellite, named Omid (Hope), carried on a two-stage Safir-2 rocket, was meant for telecommunication and research purposes, Iranian state TV said. Iran's entry in space marks the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. According to Iran's state television , "The Omid national satellite is a light satellite. This satellite has been put into the orbit to set up a two-way communication with the land station, to determine the orbit specifications, telemetry, and the specifications of subsystems". John Pike, an expert at the US-based think-tank GlobalSecurity.org, confirmed to the BBC that the launch had been a success and the satellite was now established in a low Earth orbit. At that altitude it is likely to remain in...

"If you want to run with the big dogs, you have to stop pissing with the puppies". These words are attributed to Robert Blackwill, former US Ambassador to India, in his oft-repeated lectures to the Indian government earlier this decade. The "puppies" reference here is apparently a dig at India's obsession with Pakistan. Finally, after years of futile focus on Pakistan, India is heeding the advice of Ambassador Blackwill. The country began the countdown Monday to the launch of its first unmanned mission to the moon that will signify a major catch-up step with Japan and China in the fast-developing Asian space race, according to media reports published today. "Everything is going perfectly as planned," the center's associate director M.Y.S. Prasad told AFP from Sriharikota, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Chennai, after the official countdown began in the early hours of Monday. Earlier this year, India did a successful launch of a mission with 10 s...