Business
Floods to famine: how 2025 could trigger economic crisis | The Express Tribune
LAHORE:
Pakistan is staring down the barrel of a food security emergency that could ripple through every layer of its economy. The catastrophic monsoon floods of 2025 have submerged vast swathes of the country, from Punjab’s wheat belt to Sindh’s rice-growing districts and parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Over 2,000 villages have been inundated, displacing millions, wrecking farmland, and wiping out critical infrastructure just as the summer harvest reached its peak.
The destruction is staggering. Entire standing crops of wheat, cotton, rice, maize, and sugarcane have been destroyed. In Punjab alone, 80% of the country’s wheat production is now at risk. Sindh’s rice fields and fodder supplies are underwater, while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has lost tens of thousands of acres of maize and vegetables.
Livestock losses are mounting, with fodder destroyed and surviving cattle starving. Farmers are reporting personal losses in the millions, collectively wheat farmers alone have seen over Rs2.2 trillion wiped out since last year.
The ripple effects are already visible in markets nationwide. In Lahore, Karachi, and Peshawar, staple food prices have spiked 30% to 70%, with shortages of vegetables, milk, and meat now commonplace.
For urban consumers, the pinch is immediate and painful. For rural producers, the pain is existential, as fields, homes, livestock, and seed stores have been swept away.
Tens of thousands of families now live in makeshift camps, with their livelihoods gone and no clear path to recovery. If left unsupported, millions risk falling below the poverty line, a repeat of the 2022 floods which pushed nine million Pakistanis into poverty, according to World Bank estimates.
The economic stakes are immense. Agriculture contributes 24% of Pakistan’s GDP and employs 40% of the workforce. The loss of this year’s harvest will not just hurt farmers; it will force Pakistan to import vast quantities of wheat, vegetables, and cotton, straining foreign exchange reserves and driving up the import bill.
At the same time, export earnings will collapse as rice and cotton surpluses disappear. This dangerous combination, higher imports and falling exports, threatens to widen the current account deficit and weaken the rupee.
Inflation, which had eased to 4.1% in July 2025 after painful reforms, is now set to surge again. Government officials are bracing for food inflation to return to double digits by October, with shortages of wheat and fresh produce driving price shocks. Urban and rural consumers alike will feel the squeeze, and political tensions are certain to rise as household budgets buckle under the pressure.
The floods also pose a fiscal nightmare. Relief and reconstruction costs will run into hundreds of billions of rupees, forcing the government to divert funds from other priorities or take on new debt. Under an IMF programme, fiscal space is already limited. Every rupee spent on relief is a rupee not spent on development, creating a vicious cycle of stagnation and instability.
Making matters worse, policy missteps have amplified the crisis. At the very moment when Pakistan needed stability and strategic reserves, the government moved to dismantle Passco, the only institution capable of safeguarding emergency wheat stocks and stabilising prices. Passco’s warehouses, which once held two million tons of grain, are being liquidated under IMF dictates.
Simultaneously, the abolition of the Utility Stores Corporation has stripped millions of poor households of access to subsidised food. This has left farmers at the mercy of profiteering cartels and consumers defenseless against runaway inflation.
The World Bank’s latest report warns that climate shocks are now the single biggest threat to Pakistan’s macroeconomic stability. Floods are no longer rare, one-off events, they are recurring economic shocks that depress growth, widen deficits, and push millions into poverty. The 2025 disaster is a textbook case – rising inflation, mounting imports, shrinking exports, and deepening social instability.
There are still steps that can prevent a slide into famine. Emergency imports of wheat and vegetables, temporary price controls, and targeted cash transfers to vulnerable families can stabilise the situation in the short term. Equally critical is direct support for farmers – seeds, fertiliser, and credit must be provided immediately so the upcoming Rabi winter wheat crop is not lost. Without this, Pakistan will face even deeper import dependency and food insecurity in 2026.
Longer term, Pakistan must finally invest in climate resilience. Flood defences, drainage systems, climate-smart seeds, and reliable strategic reserves are not luxuries; they are necessities for national security. As the World Bank notes, economic planning must now treat climate volatility as a core structural challenge, not a peripheral issue.
The 2025 floods are not just another disaster. They are a stark warning. If Pakistan does not act decisively, this year’s tragedy will not only wash away crops and homes, it will erode the very foundations of our economy and leave the nation vulnerable to the next inevitable shock.
The writer is a graduate of the University of British Columbia
Business
Delta and United call on Congress to immediately end government shutdown, pay air traffic controllers
A Delta Airlines plane takes off near the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Delta Air Lines and United Airlines called on Congress Thursday to reopen the U.S. government and pay air traffic controllers, with Delta urging senators to “immediately pass a clean continuing resolution.”
U.S. air traffic controllers missed their first full paychecks on Tuesday as the government shutdown drags on through a fourth week with no end in sight while Republican and Democratic senators remain at an impasse.
“Missed paychecks only increases the stress on these essential workers, many of whom are already working mandatory overtime to keep our skies safe and secure,” Delta said in a statement Thursday.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian had warned earlier this month that the airline could see impacts from a prolonged shutdown.
Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hosted a roundtable at the White House Thursday afternoon with the lobby group Airlines for America, whose members include Delta, United, American Airlines and others.
United CEO Scott Kirby told reporters outside the White House that Congress should pass a clean continuing resolution, adding that the shutdown is putting stress on the economy.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, joined by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, speaks to reporters outside the White House on Oct. 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers are essential employees who are required to work through the shutdown even though they are not receiving regular paychecks.
The missed paychecks come as controllers grapple with a longstanding staffing shortage. There are 3,800 fewer fully certified controllers than the FAA’s target, according to Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
“These additional distractions will compound the existing risks in an already strained system,” Daniels said in an opinion piece in The Hill on Tuesday.
“Every day the shutdown continues, the National Airspace System becomes less safe than it was the day before, as the controllers’ focus shifts from their critical safety tasks to their financial uncertainty,” he said.
The shutdown began on Oct. 1 after Senate Republicans and Democrats failed to reach an agreement to keep the government open.
Democratic senators are insisting that Republicans agree to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies before they will vote for funding to reopen the government.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that a four-week shutdown would cost the economy at least $7 billion by the end of 2026. A six-week shutdown would cost the economy $11 billion, and an eight-week shutdown would cost $14 billion, according to CBO estimates.
Flights have been delayed at several U.S. airports over the past month but the severe disruptions that preceded the end of the longest-ever shutdown, between late 2018 and early 2019, have not occurred.
— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.
MUMBAI: The Rs 6,632-crore initial public offering for Billionbrains Garage Ventures that runs the digital financial services company Groww, is set to open on November 4 and close on November 7. At the upper end of the Rs 95-100 price band for the IPO, the company is valued at nearly Rs 62,000 crore. The shares are to be listed on NSE and BSE around November 12.Of the total offer size, Rs 1,060 crore will accrue to Groww while a bunch of existing shareholders, mostly private equity players, would get Rs 5,572 crore in total by offloading part of their stakes.Established in 2017, the Bengaluru-based fintech company offers a host of financial and investment products such as stocks, derivatives, mutual funds, IPOs, bonds to retail investors through its digital platform. The company’s aim is to offer all types of financial and investment solutions to its customers.
The FTSE 100 extended its winning run to nine, recouping early hefty falls, despite fresh problems for advertising group WPP.
The FTSE 100 index closed up just 3.92 points at 9,760.06, another record close.
The FTSE 250 ended down 171.99 points, 0.8%, at 22,276.28, and the AIM All-Share closed down 3.09 points, 0.4%, at 769.80.
WPP plunged 17% as it warned performance in the year-to-date was at the “low-end of expectations” as it cut the company’s outlook.
The London-based advertising agency firm said revenue in the third quarter fell 8.4% to £3.26 billion, and was down 3.5% on a like-for-like basis.
Revenue less pass-through costs slumped 11% to £2.46 billion, falling 5.9% like-for-like.
New chief executive Cindy Rose acknowledged that recent performance was “unacceptable” and pledged to take action to address this.
“There is a lot to do,” Ms Rose said, adding, “we are optimistic, energised and confident that we’re building the right plan”.
It is the latest in a series of troubled days for WPP investors with shares down 63% in the last 12 months.
In European equities on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris closed down 0.5%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt ended little changed.
Stocks in New York were mixed with a 9.7% fall in Meta Platforms weighing on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.5%, the S&P 500 index was 0.3% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.8%.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, forecast increased investment and higher operating costs ahead after a third quarter distorted by a hefty tax provision.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told investors he feels the right strategy is to “aggressively front-load building capacity”.
Investors also weighed hawkish comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell who pushed back against market pricing for another interest rate cut in December.
Mr Powell, speaking after the Fed cut rates by a quarter point at its October meeting, said a reduction in December was not a “foregone conclusion” and a cut should not be assumed.
JPMorgan analyst Michael Feroli said: “By Powell’s standards, these were unusually blunt remarks.”
While Bank of America said Mr Powell pushed back “stridently” against market pricing of a December cut and drove the message home “several times” during the press conference.
The US rate call came ahead of central bank meetings in Japan and Europe.
The Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged, decided by a seven to two majority vote.
In a statement released by BoJ following the monetary policy meeting, it said interest rates were held at 0.5%, matching consensus cited by FXStreet.
“High uncertainties still remain regarding the impact of trade and other policies on economic activity and prices at home and abroad,” the BoJ said in a statement following the decision.
While in Europe, the European Central Bank left rates on hold for a third meeting in a row stating its outlook for inflation is broadly unchanged.
The decision by the Frankfurt-based lender leaves the interest rates on the deposit facility, the main refinancing operations and the marginal lending facility unchanged at 2.00%, 2.15% and 2.40% respectively.
The widely expected decision is the third hold in succession by the ECB, following similar outcomes in July and September.
Prior to the hold in July, it had cut for seven meetings in a row.
Deutsche Bank Chief European economist Mark Wall said “despite the US tariffs, despite all the various sources of uncertainty, the European economy continues to eke out some growth”.
“Economic ‘resilience’ is keeping the ECB doves in check, and the policy pause on the rails,” he said.
Mr Powell’s comments put the dollar on the front foot and pushed bond yields upwards.
The pound was quoted at 1.3149 dollars at the time of the London equities close on Thursday, lower compared to 1.3236 dollars on Wednesday.
The euro fell to 1.1565 dollars from 1.1660 dollars.
Against the yen, the dollar was trading at 154.11 yen, higher compared to 152.10 yen.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.09%, widening from 4.00% on Wednesday.
The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was quoted at 4.64%, stretched from 4.57%.
Back in London, lender Standard Chartered rose 1.9% after stating it expects to reach its return on tangible equity target in 2025 instead of by 2026.
Chief executive officer Bill Winters said progress was broad-based and highlighted strong double-digit growth in Wealth Solutions and Global Banking, alongside good momentum in Global Markets.
On the FTSE 250, Computacenter gained 5.0% as it said it performed strongly in the third quarter with continued momentum in North America, improvements in the UK, and a return to growth in Germany.
Ithaca Energy and Harbour Energy rose 4.6% and 3.3% respectively after a report in the Financial Times said the UK Government could scrap its windfall tax on the oil-and-gas sector one year earlier than planned.
Meanwhile, conditional dealing in lender Shawbrook Group began in London.
Shares closed at 396 pence, well above the 370p offer price, giving it a market value of just over £2 billion.
Unconditional dealing on the London Main Market will begin on Tuesday next week.
TT Electronics was a star performer, soaring 59% after accepting a £287 million takeover approach from Cicor Technologies.
Bronschhofen, Switzerland-based Cicor develops, and manufactures electronic components, devices, and systems.
Woking, England-based TT, which also manufactures electronic components, said the cash and shares offer values each share in TT at 155p.
Brent oil was quoted at 64.92 dollars a barrel at the time of the London equities close on Thursday, up from 64.52 dollars late on Wednesday.
Gold was little changed, trading at 3,998.00 dollars an ounce against 3,997.24 dollars on Wednesday.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Airtel Africa, up 6.4 pence at 274.8p, Auto Trader, up 15.2p at 808.8p, Centrica, up 3.3p at 179.8p, Standard Chartered, up 28.0p at 1,544.0p, and GSK, up 31.0p at 1,783.0p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were WPP, down 61.7p at 298.85p, JD Sports Fashion, down 3.32p at 95.0p, Whitbread, down 80.0p at 2,967.0p, Segro, down 14.4p at 699.7p and Burberry, down 26.0p at 1,280.0p.
Friday’s global economic calendar has Canada GDP data, eurozone inflation figures and the Chicago PMI in the US.
There are no significant events scheduled on Friday’s UK corporate calendar.
– Contributed by Alliance News
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