PARIS: World food commodity prices fell for a third consecutive month in November, with all major staple foods except cereals showing a decline, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Friday.

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks a basket of globally traded food commodities, averaged 125.1 points in November, down from a revised 126.6 in October and the lowest since January.

The November average was also 2.1pc below the year-earlier level and 21.9pc down from a peak in March 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the FAO said.

The agency’s sugar price reference fell 5.9pc from October to its lowest since December 2020, pressured by ample global supply expectations, while the dairy price index dropped 3.1pc in a fifth consecutive monthly decline, reflecting increased milk production and export supplies.

Vegetable oil prices fell 2.6pc to a five-month low, as declines for most products including palm oil outweighed strength in soyoil.

Meat prices declined 0.8pc, with pork and poultry leading the decrease, while beef quotations stabilised as the removal of U.S. tariffs on beef imports tempered recent strength, the FAO said.

In contrast, the FAO’s cereal price benchmark rose 1.8pc month-on-month. Wheat prices increased due to potential demand from China and geopolitical tensions in the Black Sea region, while maize prices were supported by demand for Brazilian exports and reports of weather disruption to field work in South America.

In a separate cereal supply and demand report, the FAO raised its global cereal production forecast for 2025 to a record 3.003 billion tonnes, compared with 2.990bn tonnes projected last month.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2025

• Pakistani users trade over $250bn in crypto annually, Binance reveals
• Around 17.5m Pakistanis registered on platform, holding $5bn in virtual assets
• Banks flag security, compliance concerns over crypto integration

ISLAMABAD: The government said on Friday it was considering a “time-bound amn­esty” for cryptocurrency traders, as local banks raised risk and compliance concerns amid more than $250 billion in annual crypto trading reportedly conducted by Pakistani users.

Officials floated the idea at a high-level consultative meeting after a top global cryptocurrency exchange argued that virtual assets could boost Pakistan’s GDP.

“These virtual assets should be considered as part of liquid money supply (M-1) … virtual assets collateralisation will help increase M-1” because these are highly visible and dependable, a Binance team member told the meeting, co-chaired by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and Pakistan Virtual Assets Regu­latory Authority (PVARA) Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib.

The meeting had been arranged to discuss and advance work on Pakistan’s National Digital Asset Framework, an official statement said, adding that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor also attended, along with presidents and executives of the country’s leading commercial banks and senior leaders from Binance, including Global CEO Richard Teng.

The meeting examined sovereign debt tokenisation to enhance liquidity, widen investor access and position Pakistan as a regional frontrunner in compliant blockchain-based financial instruments.

The meeting also “outlined principles for a practical taxation and compliance framework, including shifting primary oversight to licensed exchanges, designing a gradual capital gains structure to promote stability and considering a time-bound amnesty to encourage users to move assets onto regulated platforms”, the statement said.

Sources told Dawn that the Binance team reported that about 17.5 million Pakistanis were currently registered traders of Binance, including 4m active traders. They jointly hold around $5bn in virtual assets with Binance alone, with annual trading turnover of around $250bn.

Pakistani users with other crypto companies are not part of this. Binance had more than 300m active users, mostly in 22 countries.

“This unlocks $5bn of assets that Pakistani users are now able to invest back into economy in Pakistani rupees,” a Binance official said, adding that “banks could also make withdrawals of stablecoins”.

Binance will determine maximum existing loan liability to the bank through Application Programming Interface (API) used for automated trading, “vastly reducing Pakistani users’ default rates”, the official claimed.

Banks raise concerns

The local banks raised questions about security risks and global experiences to safeguard stakeholders’ — banks and customers — interest, including in terms of money laundering issues.

They were told that Binance could help address those concerns through its experiences in other countries as real-time reporting of any individual users’ virtual assets and balances was traceable and visible.

In addition, the SBP’s participation would allow Pakistani banks to determine borrowing capacity and to hold recognised US dollar assets on the Binance platform, hence increasing Pakistan’s asset base and overall volumes to the Pakistan economy.

“Banks can lend confidently based on visible and verified assets,” a Binance official was quoted as assuring local bank representatives.

The banks were told that SDCs — a term used for “shadow cash” — were usable assets for bank credits and loans, and Pakistan would be able to attract billions of US dollars by providing a new avenue for remittances on top of roughly $38bn sent annually through conventional routes by overseas Pakistanis.

The officials said US infrastructure development funds, USAID and US Treasury-linked credits could further drive dollar flows into Pakistan and “boost GDP and economic growth”, despite inherent challenges.

PVARA Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib, who recently stepped down as special assistant to the prime minister on blockchain and cryptocurrency because of a conflict of interest with his regulatory role, declined to comment on the meeting.

An official statement, however, said he stressed the “importance of viewing digital assets as critical financial infrastructure with significant potential to support financial inclusion, expand access to services for the unbanked and create new opportunities for banks through innovative products, expanded deposits and new customer segments”.

The statement said the meeting reviewed Pakistan’s next steps towards building a secure, well-regulated and innovation-driven digital asset ecosystem, with a particular emphasis on responsible operationalisation of on-and-off-ramp infrastructure, enhanced compliance standards, improved market transparency and stronger integration of regulated financial institutions.

Finance Minister Aurangzeb reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to establishing a robust and forward-looking regulatory environment that supports technological innovation while safeguarding national economic interests.

He called for close coordination between government agencies, licensed global exchanges and domestic banks for modernising the payments landscape, improving financial inclusion and aligning national systems with international standards.

The statement said the participants reviewed opportunities to modernise Pakistan’s digital payments landscape, noting that blockchain-based systems could significantly reduce costs from the country’s $38bn annual remittance flows.

They emphasised the need to build local talent pipelines to meet rising global demand for blockchain and Web3 skills, creating high-value employment opportunities for Pakistani youth.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2025

The state-run Oil & Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) is planning a major expansion of unconventional gas developments from early next year, aiming to boost production and reduce reliance on imported liquefied natural gas.

Pakistan has long been viewed as having potential in both tight and shale gas, which are trapped in rock and can only be released with specialised drilling, but commercial output has yet to be proved.

Managing Director Ahmed Lak told Reuters that OGDCL had tripled its tight-gas study area to 4,500 square kilometres after new seismic and reservoir analysis indicated larger potential. Phase two of a technical evaluation will finish by the end of January, followed by full development plans.

The renewed push comes after US President Donald Trump said Pakistan held “massive” oil reserves in July, a statement analysts said lacked credible geological evidence, but which prompted Islamabad to underscore that it is pursuing its own efforts to unlock unconventional resources.

“We started with 85 wells, but the footprint has expanded massively,” Lak said, adding that OGDCL’s next five-year plan would look “drastically different”.

Early results point to a “significant” resource across parts of Sindh and Balochistan, where multiple reservoirs show tight-gas characteristics, he said.

Shale pilot ramps up

OGDCL is also fast-tracking its shale programme, shifting from a single test well to a five-to-six-well plan in 2026-27, with expected flows of 34 million standard cubic feet per day (mmcfd) per well. If successful, the development could scale to hundreds or even more than 1,000 wells, Lak said.

He said shale alone could eventually add 600 mmcfd to 1 billion standard cubic feet per day of incremental supply, though partners would be needed if the pilot proves viable.

The company is open to partners “on a reciprocal basis”, potentially exchanging acreage abroad for participation in Pakistan, he said.

A 2015 US Energy Information Administration study estimated Pakistan had 9.1 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil, the largest such resource outside China and the United States.

A 2022 assessment found parts of the Indus Basin geologically comparable to North American shale plays, though analysts say commercial viability still hinges on better geomechanical data, expanded fracking capacity and water availability.

OGDCL plans to begin drilling a deep-water offshore well in the Indus Basin in the fourth quarter of 2026, Lak said. In October, Turkey’s TPAO, with PPL and its consortium partners, including OGDCL, were awarded a block for offshore exploration.

A combination of weak gas demand, rising solar uptake and a rigid LNG import schedule has created a surplus of gas that forced OGDCL to curb output and pushed Pakistan to divert cargoes from Italy’s ENI and seek revised terms with Qatar.