Category: 3. Business

LAHORE – Finally some sigh of relief for millions of Pakistani households and businesses, as the federal government is looking at options to open new Sui Gas connections ending years of waiting.

For Pakistanis, Sui gas remains the most affordable energy source for cooking and other purposes while 3.5 million applicants have been left waiting due to ban imposed amid limited supply.

Sources familiar with the development told Pakistan Observer that decision is under serious consideration by policymakers to address growing surplus of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), and to protect existing gas infrastructure, and to fulfil LNG supply commitments. It is backed by Ministry of Finance, as proposal seeks to ease pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which have been strained by the high cost of LNG imports.

For the unversed, long-standing ban on new Sui Gas connections was first imposed in 2009, but was partially relaxed in 2015, and was again closed three year back. Applications have continued to pile up with the country’s two main gas providers: Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL).

As per available information more than 1Lac new gas connections are expected to be issued in fiscal year 2025–26. This move comes alongside structural reforms aimed at meeting International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions.

For now, the potential revival of gas connections offers hope to millions of families and small businesses long awaiting a vital utility—and marks a significant shift in the country’s energy policy direction.

Sui Gas Chares

 Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has announced a significant increase in gas tariffs to recover costs, reduce subsidies, and curb circular debt. While per-unit rates for household users remain unchanged, fixed monthly charges have surged—rising by 50% for protected users and up to 200% for high-consumption households.

Guide for New Gas Connection 

If SNGPL gas pipeline exists in front of your home and is operational, you can apply directly for a connection. If no gas pipeline is available in your street, you will need to apply for a network extension.

Get required application form from SNGPL Regional Office Or download it online from the official SNGPL website

Fill Out the Application Form

Fill the form in capital letters. Choose the correct form based on whether the gas network is available or not.

Required Documents 

Submit your completed application form with the following:

1. CNIC (Computerized National Identity Card) copy

2. Property ownership proof (e.g., registry or other legal document)

3. Gas bill from your nearest neighbor

Site Visit 

SNGPL representative will visit your house in due course (based on your turn) They will assess if it’s technically and operationally feasible to provide gas.

Get Proposal Letter / Demand Notice

If your application is approved You will receive a Proposal Letter (Demand Notice It will include: House Line Plan A list of approved installation contractors in your region

Sui Gas Connection Charges 2025

You need to pay Service Line Charges + Security Deposit, depending on your plot size:

Under 10 Marlas

Over 10 Marlas Premises

New Sui Gas Timings in Lahore as SNGPL shares schedule for Ramazan 2025

Crypto companies and traders are pouring billions of dollars into tokenised versions of money market and Treasury bond mutual funds, as they look beyond stablecoins to other places to park excess cash that can also give them some yield.

Total assets held in tokenised Treasury products — which include funds whose units have been converted into digital tokens as well as some tokenised US government bonds — have jumped 80 per cent so far this year to $7.4bn, according to data group RWA.xyz. Funds run by BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Janus Henderson have grown particularly rapidly, with combined assets tripling.

Inflows have been driven in part by crypto traders, many of whom are finding tokenised funds a more attractive place than stablecoins to park their money. Some investors are also starting to use these funds as an easy-to-trade form of collateral in crypto derivatives transactions.

“Stablecoins were the place holder, tokenised money market funds are the real deal. Traders are starting to make the switch,” said Olivier Portenseigne at FundsDLT, which is part of the clearing house Clearstream.

“Tokenisation . . . provides a cheaper and easier way to buy mutual funds, and liquidity is enhanced,” he added.

The election of pro-crypto US President Donald Trump has triggered a fresh wave of enthusiasm that blockchain-based technology can modernise the plumbing of financial markets, where the speed at which deals are settled still lags far behind the pace at which trading information is processed.

Tokenising money market funds creates a digital version of one of the most conservative asset management products, which can then be held on a ledger. Proponents say tokenisation encourages faster and cheaper trading because Treasuries and money market funds can be accepted as collateral.

Settlement times on a blockchain are minutes rather than days — which reduces capital requirements — while risks in meeting margin payments and administration expenses for the asset manager are also lower, they say.

McKinsey estimates the market for tokenised mutual funds, bonds and exchange traded notes could grow to $2tn. Traditional US money market funds at present manage about $7tn in assets.

So far, the main demand for tokenised bond and money market funds has come from crypto traders, who are increasingly using them as an alternative to stablecoins.

The latter — frequently used as a place to park cash before or after trading other tokens — are pegged to and denominated in a hard currency and thus do not change in price, but also do not offer any yield to holders. Tokenised money market funds provide more security than stablecoins, say analysts, while providing the investor with yield.

Crypto investors can use tokenised products to hold any spare cash “in a format that is easy to use and, unlike most stablecoins, allows them to earn a yield”, wrote Stephen Tu, an analyst at Moody’s, in a recent report.

Another source of growth has been stablecoin issuers themselves, which have invested the reserves that back their tokens into high-quality, yield-bearing assets. Janus Henderson’s $409mn tokenised Treasury Fund (JTRSY) is primarily backed by one client, Sky Money, the third-largest stablecoin issuer.

In addition, investors are also starting to use these tokenised US Treasury products as collateral when trading on margin, for instance in over-the-counter derivative trades such as interest rate swaps. Doing so means that traders are — like nonstop crypto markets — no longer tied to the operational hours of banks for payments and trade settlement.

In a sign of growing enthusiasm on Wall Street for tokenised collateral, last month several groups, including US trading company DRW Trading, bond market platform Tradeweb Markets, BNP Paribas, Citadel Securities and Goldman Sachs collectively invested $135mn in Digital Asset, whose Canton Network blockchain holds tokenised assets such as bonds and repurchase agreements. YZi, the family investment office of former Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao, was also part of the fundraising.

Digital Asset chief executive Yuval Rooz said the company’s focus was on moving collateral, which is used to meet margin calls, and payments. Allowing companies “to move their collateral and margin” as quickly as all their other crypto assets would lead to “pretty dramatic” efficiencies and cost savings, he added.

While money market funds are sometimes used as collateral in derivatives trades, few clearing houses will take them as collateral — such as for futures contracts — owing to the lengthy redemption process that can only be done during bank and market opening hours. Clients of JPMorgan Chase, through its blockchain unit Kinexys, used a tokenised money market fund as collateral in a swaps trade in 2023 as a test case. Later in 2024, its blockchain unit even issued a tokenised US municipal bond.

“The true killer app [of tokenisation] for me is collateral management,” Caroline Pham, acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told a conference in London last month.

But broader acceptance by traders and exchanges has been slow, with some pointing to the dramatic drop in crypto market liquidity at weekends when mainstream markets are largely shut.

“Everyone in the market understands the [collateralisation] thesis and the reason to use these,” said Tony Ashraf, who is in charge of digital asset transformation at BlackRock.

However, he added that at present, “tokenised bonds are inferior to cash bonds. They lack liquidity in the market. I still think it’s very early days for the product.”

Gold fell as traders sought to track shifts in US trade policy, with bullion edging lower as President Donald Trump signaled an additional 10% tariff would apply to countries aligned with the BRICS group of nations.

Bullion lost as much as 0.9% to near $3,306 an ounce following the president’s threat, which gave the US dollar a small lift. With the US negotiating deals ahead of an initial July 9 tariff deadline, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated a possible extension to negotiations, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said country-by-country tariffs would take effect Aug. 1.

The story so far:

Google’s AI-powered summaries, known as AI Overviews, are facing a formal antitrust complaint from a coalition of independent publishers in the European Union, as per a report by Reuters. Their complaint, lodged with the European Commission, alleges that Alphabet’s Google is abusing its market dominance, siphoning traffic and revenue from publishers, and threatening the viability of independent journalism. The feature, rolled out in over 100 countries, represents Google’s major strategic bet on integrating generative AI directly into its core search experience. However, this move has ignited fierce opposition from content creators who claim it undermines the very ecosystem that Google’s search engine relies on.

What is Google AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google’s search results page, positioned above the traditional list of blue links. Their purpose is to provide users with a quick, synthesised answer to their query, drawing information from multiple web sources. These overviews can range from a few paragraphs to lists or tables and often include links to the source websites within the generated text.

First introduced as an experiment called Search Generative Experience (SGE) in May 2023, the feature is now a core part of Google Search in many regions.

How do AI Overviews work?

When a user enters a search query, Google’s systems determine if generative AI could be particularly helpful in providing a comprehensive answer. If so, it employs a customised version of its advanced AI model, Gemini, to process the request.

The system doesn’t rely solely on the AI’s pre-existing knowledge. Instead, it uses a technique called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), where it actively fetches and analyses relevant information from its web index. The AI then synthesises this information into a coherent summary. Google states that these overviews are designed to be backed up by top web results, and include links to allow users to “dig deeper.”

Why are publishers accusing Google?

The crux of the dispute lies in how these AI-generated answers impact the businesses that create the original content. The Independent Publishers Alliance, alongside groups like the Movement for an Open Web and the legal advocacy non-profit Foxglove, argues that this new feature hurts competition and is causing “serious irreparable harm,” as per the Reuters report citing documents it has seen.

The publishers’ key complaints stem from the concern that their content will be disincentivised because of Google’s AI feature. By providing a direct summary at the top of the page, users have less incentive to click through to their websites.

This leads to a significant drop in traffic, which in turn slashes advertising revenue and subscriber numbers, the lifeblood of many online publications.

Their complaint alleges that Google is “misusing web content” by scraping information from publisher sites to train its AI models and generate summaries without fair compensation. Since May 2024, Google has also begun placing ads within these AI Overviews, meaning it is directly monetising content that publishers have invested in creating.

The complaint highlights that there is no way to opt out of having their content used for AI Overviews without also being removed from Google’s main search results. Given Google’s dominance in search, becoming invisible on the platform is not a feasible option for any publisher.

How are regulators getting involved?

The formal complaint, per the report, was filed with both the European Commission and the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The publishers are asking for “interim measures” to stop Google from using the feature while the case is investigated, to prevent further damage.

While the European Commission has not commented publicly on the complaint, it has previously investigated Google for other anticompetitive practices.

The U.K.’s CMA has confirmed receipt of the complaint and noted that AI Overviews fall within the scope of its ongoing work to designate Google with a “strategic market status.”

This designation would grant the CMA more power to regulate Google’s conduct, potentially including rules that give publishers more control over how their content is used in AI summaries without having to be de-listed from search entirely.

How is Google defending AI Overviews?

Google has pushed back against the publishers’ claims. A company spokesperson stated that “New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”

The company maintains that it sends billions of clicks to websites every day and that traffic fluctuations can be due to many factors, such as seasonal interest and regular algorithm updates. Google also claims that clicks from pages with AI Overviews are of “higher quality,” meaning users are more likely to stay on the sites they visit.

Published – July 07, 2025 08:30 am IST

China’s new anti-dumping duty targeting European brandy unexpectedly became the toast of France over the weekend, after Beijing granted exemptions to a string of French cognac makers.

But French leaders ended up hailing the ruling as a “positive step”, after a deal was brokered that saw major producers including Hennessy, Martell and Rémy Martin sign on to a minimum export price that exempted them from the levy.

That allowed Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to wrap up his European tour on a positive note on Sunday, with Beijing having published an official list of 34 companies exempted from the tariff and French industry insiders sharing that the move could have a huge impact.

The exemptions will cover roughly 90 per cent of French cognac exports to China in volume terms, according to France’s Union Générale des Viticulteurs pour l’AOC Cognac (UGVC), a producers’ union with 2,000 members.

French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot framed China’s announcement as an “agreement” reached between China and the cognac industry at a joint press conference with Wang on Friday evening, Paris time.

Datadog (DDOG) shares remain in focus after soaring to a six-month high at the end of last week on news that the cloud monitoring company will be joining the S&P 500 on July 9.

Typically, stocks that get included into benchmarks like the large cap S&P 500 receive a boost as they become visible to new investors and get added to index-tracking exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Datadog shares lost more than half their value between December and April as uncertainty over the Trump administration’s tariffs and downbeat earnings projections from the compamy pummeled the stock. However, they have nearly doubled from their 2025 low and are up about 9% since the start of the year, boosted by renewed investor appetite for cloud and AI stocks. The stock jumped 15% to around $155 on Thursday, ahead of the July 4th break.

Below, we take a closer look at Datadog’s chart and use technical analysis to point out price levels that investors will likely be watching.

Bullish Rising Wedge Breakout

After bottoming in early April, Datadog shares traded higher within a rising wedge before staging a decisive breakout in Thursday’s trading session. Importantly, the jump occurred on the highest daily volume since the stock went public in September 2019, signaling strong buying conviction from larger market participants.

While the relative strength index confirms bullish price momentum, it also flashes extreme overbought conditions, potentially raising the possibility of short-term profit-taking.

Let’s identify two key overhead areas on Datadog’s chart to watch and locate important support levels worth monitoring.

Key Overhead Areas to Watch

Follow-through buying this week could see the shares climb to the $170 area. The price may run into selling pressure in this location near the prominent December swing high.

Investors can project an upside target above this area by using the bars pattern tool. When applying the analysis, we take the stock’s trend higher that followed an earlier breakaway gap on the chart in November 2023 and reposition it from the low of Thursday’s gap. This projects a bullish target of around $205, about 32% above last week’s closing price.

Important Support Levels Worth Monitoring

Profit-taking in the stock could see a retracement toward $135. This area would likely attract strong support near a trendline that connects the top of the rising wedge with a series of price action on the chart stretching back to January last year.

A deeper correction could trigger a decline to lower support around $125. Datadog shares find a confluence of support in this region near the 200-day moving average and a horizontal line that links a range of corresponding trading activity on the chart between December 2023 and June this year.

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As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the above securities.