islamabad
\nPakistan imports more than 85% of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through a single maritime route via the Strait of Hormuz, and the escalating conflict in the region has disrupted that passage, further destabilising the country\u2019s already fragile economy.
\nFarmers say they are struggling to cope with rising fuel costs ahead of the harvest season, while some schools are due to shift online on Monday. With nearly half of Pakistan\u2019s 250 million people living in poverty, according to the World Bank, many children lack access to a laptop, tablet or reliable internet. Ahead of Eid ul Fitr, many families are also cancelling trips to their hometowns, dimming what is usually a festive period marking the end of Ramadan.
\n\u201cPakistan is already bankrupt and surviving loan by loan,\u201d said Kaiser Bengali, a Pakistani economist, referring to the loans that the South Asian nation has received from the International Monetary Fund. \u201cAny prolonged disruption could topple its economy.\u201d Surging energy costs have choked the economies of megacities and rural areas across South Asia, where many live on daily wages with little to no savings to cushion sudden rising costs.
\nIn India, some restaurants have removed slow-simmered dishes from their menus to limit the consumption of cooking gas, and one city has suspended gas-fuelled cremations. In Bangladesh, universities have closed to conserve electricity and reduce transportation needs. In Nepal, the government plans to ration cooking gas.
\nPakistan has been hit especially hard. Nearly all of its fuel arrives through the Strait of Hormuz, a route that is now being strangled by Iran. At least 16 ships, including oil tankers and commercial vessels, have been attacked in the Persian Gulf since late February. Tanker traffic has slowed, forcing ships to remain docked in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan\u2019s economic hub and a stopping point for many of those tankers.
\nWith its supplies cut off, the Pakistani government raised fuel prices on March 6 by 20% in an effort to stop hoarding \u2014 one of the world\u2019s highest increases since the beginning of the US-Israeli war in Iran.
\nAccording to the NYT, Rising costs have badly hurt the farmers and daily labourers who drive the bulk of Pakistan\u2019s economy.
\nAgriculture contributes over 23% of gross domestic product and employs 37% of the labour force. Farmers in Pakistan\u2019s heartland, who are preparing for the spring harvest, said rising fuel prices would raise the cost of running the machinery to plough fields and the trucks to take grain to market.
\n\u201cThe use of tractors and other agricultural machinery is unavoidable at most stages of cultivation and harvesting, and these largely run on diesel,\u201d said Aamer Hayat Bhandara, a farmer from the Pakpattan district in Punjab, Pakistan\u2019s most populous province and its breadbasket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
islamabad Pakistan imports more than 85% of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through a single maritime route via the Strait of Hormuz, and the escalating conflict in the region has disrupted that passage, further destabilising the country\u2019s already fragile economy. Farmers say they are struggling to cope with rising …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95168,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95147\/revisions\/95168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}