Monday, 31 August 2020
Enjoy Endless Handheld Infotainment with the all new HUAWEI MatePad T 8
Tuesday, 25 August 2020
With Unrivalled, Affordable Performance the New HUAWEI MatePad T 8 Goes on Sale
realme C12 sold out on Hot Sale making realme Pakistan best selling brand on saamaan.pk
realme Pakistan recently launched the realme C12. After a successful online launch and sold out over 2000 pieces under first 10 minutes of its Hot Sale at Saamaan.pk now the realme C12 is now up for sale nationwide by August 26, 2020.
Sunday, 23 August 2020
Rebuilding a Greener, More Inclusive and Prosperous Recovery in Pakistan
Thursday, 20 August 2020
realme fan fest 20-8; Fastest Growing AIOT Brand offering newly launched products on Hot Sale Saamaan.pk
Tuesday, 18 August 2020
HUAWEI AppGallery Bolsters Itself with the Availability of Pakistan’s No. 1 Payments App
realme Buds Q truly wireless earbuds to launch in Pakistan on 18.8 in a live event
Monday, 17 August 2020
realme Pakistan announces realme Fan festival. Super Products Hot Sale & Fun Campaigns. Save the Date 20.8
“Apps UP” HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest Comes to Pakistan
Sunday, 9 August 2020
‘Tax harmonisation issue likely to be resolved within the Q1 of FY20-21’: FS Punjab
Business & tax experts
examine Punjab’s Budget 20-21, share future-focused recommendations
Leading representatives from the business community,
professional bodies and government sat together at a high-level virtual
post-budget seminar themed 'Economic Impact, Harmonisation and Future
Orientation' to examine the Punjab's provincial Budget 2020-21 and identified
economic opportunities and shared forward-thinking recommendations.
The online seminar was organised by ACCA (the
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) with representatives from Lahore
Tax Bar Association (LTBA), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Institute of Cost
Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMA Pakistan), and Lahore Chamber of
Commerce & Industry (LCCI).
Secretary Finance Punjab, Muhammad Abdullah Khan Sumbal,
was the Chief Guest at the event who shared the government's perspective and
answered the concerns shared by the business community and tax professionals
during a one-on-one question and answer session.
The seminar also included a highly interactive,
future-focused panel conversation moderated by the Member of ACCA's Global Tax
Forum, and the Chair ACCA MNP & Tax Committee, Omer Zaheer Meer FCCA,
featuring contributions from following senior Conversation Leaders: Javed
Ahmed, Tax Economist, Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Kashif Anwar, Chairman -
Standing Committee on Taxation, Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry
(LCCI), Khurram Shahbaz Butt, President, Lahore Tax Bar Association (LTBA), Sajjeed
Aslam, Head of ACCA Pakistan, and Zia-Ul-Mustafa, President, ICMA Pakistan
Emphasising on the need for the harmonisation of
federal, provincial taxes, ACCA’s head of Pakistan, Sajjeed Aslam stressed,
‘To make it easy for the services sector to keep
creating job opportunities for the country’s youth and attract foreign direct
investment, there’s an urgent need for policy makers to truly understand the
real needs of this sector and provinces need to introduce a mechanism to
facilitate the adjustment of tax refunds and bring harmonisation in tax rates
across all provinces.’
In his address, Muhammad Abdullah Khan Sumbal,
Secretary Finance Punjab, shared,
‘Despite the fact that working in the IMF regime
remains challenging that requires significant revenue generation and
expenditure management, the Punjab’s budget 2020-21 is business-friendly and
forward-thinking and contains inputs from all major stakeholders. The
provincial government is determined to support the private sector to enable
them to create new jobs, and consistent with Federal government’s efforts,
we’re heavily facilitating the construction sector. Considerable efforts are
being made to ensure ease of doing business in Punjab. We're the first province
to give zero rating to Public Private Partnerships showing our desire to
support the private sector. We're working towards broadening of sales tax base
and actively engaging with federal and provincial counterparts to ensure harmonisation
and cooperation.’
The Finance Secretary also shared that the government
feels Human Development (HD) is a more effective indicator compared to Economic
Growth (EG), therefore social development projects to remain its priority with
major investments in education and health.
He also shared his hope that the tax harmonisation
issue will be resolved within the first quarter of the current FY and we can
expect reaching some level of consensus between federation and provinces to
devise a workable framework accommodating different views.
Javed Ahmed shared that PRA is moving with pace toward
digitisation to facilitate taxpayers and is committedly working to remove
impediments.
The President of LTBA, Khurram Shahbaz questioned the
introduction of regressive measures like attaching credit facilities and
encouraged government to actively engage with professionals to ensure
progressive legislations.
Representing the business community, Kashif Anwar
shared the difficulties that businesses are facing and recommended
business-friendly initiatives with focus on providing more value to taxpayers.
Attendees appreciated the role of ACCA in
super-connecting all the stakeholders and facilitating an action-oriented
conversation to support policy makers to directly engage with the business
community and create a conducive environment for commercial activity and
corporate sector innovation.
Thursday, 6 August 2020
World’s fastest growing smartphone brand realme releases H1 2020 results
realme, one of the leading smartphone brands globally has just released its H1 2020 figures and statistics. realme reported an 11% growth in Q2 2020, the only major brand to have registered a double-digit positive figure and has been named the fastest growing smartphone brand in the world for four consecutive quarters by Counterpoint. In Q1, Counterpoint also reported that realme was one of the only two brands to have registered positive growth with 157% YoY.
Based on the latest user numbers, realme has added 15M users in the first half of the year. realme reported that it is now a TOP 4 smartphone brand in Thailand, India, Cambodia and Egypt, and also achieved TOP 5 in Myanmar, Philippines, Ukraine, Indonesia and Vietnam, according the Counterpoint Research and IDC.
realme has focused on promoting 5G products in its retail markets, beginning with the X50 Pro 5G. realme has launched the first 5G-capable flagship phone in India, as well as Thailand's first 5G phone. The company has also launched Cambodia's first 5G phone under USD1,000.
In 2020, realme has implemented a 'Smartphone + AIoT' dual-driven strategy. In spite of a challenging economic environment, realme has successfully met targets laid out in this initiative. realme is on track to launch over 50 AIoT products in 2020 and over 100 the following year. In Q1 2020, despite realme being a new entrant into the smart personal audio market in India, it has secured a third place in terms of market share, according to a report by Canalys, a research firm.
realme defines its AIoT strategy as a "1+4+N" initiative, which refers to one core product (smartphones), complemented by four major groups of lifestyle devices (speakers, earphones, TVs and watches) which is in turn supported by "N" types of smart accessories.
realme's CEO, Mr Li Bingzhong, issued the following comments:
• Since 2018, realme has grown to 40M users, and this is due to the strong, youthful and international team here at realme. With an average age of only 29 years old, this team has shown that they dared to leap forward and proved the power of youth in a competitive market.
• As we continue to build upon a strong H1 performance, realme is aiming to sell 100m phones in 3 years. We plan to continue our international expansion plans, where we think there will be the most growth. For example, our AIoT products have been performing well in the Indian market, where we sold 15,000 TV sets within 10 mins and our smart personal audio devices have reached 3rd place in terms of market share within 3 months.
• realme has done well in expanding to nearly 60 different countries and regions. As the world’s fastest growing smartphone brand, this is a validation of our mission and strategy to empower youths to ‘dare to leap’ outside of their boundaries.
realme's products have also made waves in the design world. In 2020, realme's Design Studio have collaborated with world-renowned designers Naoto Fukasawa and Jose Levy, of Hermes fame to produce trendsetting realme products. In addition, realme has won the prestigious Red Dot Design Award for its X2 Pro Master, issuing a strong challenge to incumbent brands. realme has pioneered innovations not only in design but also in technology, most notably when it launched the world’s first 125W fast charging technology.
Milestones:
• realme grew by 157% in Q1 2020
• realme is the fastest growing smartphone brand globally, according to Counterpoint
• realme has gained more than 15M users in H1 2020
• realme is now active in 59 countries and regions across 5 continents
• realme has achieved at least TOP5 in 9 different markets
Wednesday, 5 August 2020
Huawei Mobile Services Ecosystem Reaches New Heights with 1.6 million Global Developers
Huawei Mobile Services are available in HUAWEI Nova 7i, HUAWEI Y6p and all other Huawei smartphones.
Huawei shared the latest progress on both Huawei Mobile Services Ecosystem and AppGallery at the 19th China Internet Conference. Huawei Mobile Services Ecosystem is growing rapidly, reaching 700 million global Huawei device users, with a year-on-year growth of 32%. The number of registered Huawei developers worldwide has reached 1.6 million, up 76% year-on-year, with more than 81,000 innovative applications integrated with HMS Core open capabilities.
For over 30 years, Huawei has worked closely with partners to bring better digital connectivity to people and communities around the world. It believes that in the world increasingly driven by digital technologies, no one should be left behind. Huawei seeks to encourage global innovative developers to work with Huawei Mobile Services to bring better and smarter experience to consumers. Huawei has previously announced a USD 1 billion Shining Star Program to incentivise global developers. More than 10,000 innovative apps have since benefited from it.
Looking at Pakistan, Huawei has been hard at work to make the HUAWEI AppGallery experience better with the addition of top local apps such as Easypaisa, SC Mobile Pakistan, HBL Mobile, Meezan Mobile Banking, Askari Bank, My Zong, My Telenor, Foodpanda, Daraz Online Shopping App and many more.
Over 5000 developers joined Huawei Developer Conference 2019
“AppGallery, Huawei's official app distribution platform, covers more than 170 countries and regions. With this coverage, we hope to share local digital innovation with the world. We want every innovative app developed by global partners to reach all 700 million Huawei device users.” said Zhang Ping’an, President of Consumer Cloud Service, Huawei Consumer Business Group. Concurrently, globalized HMS Apps such as HUAWEI Video, HUAWEI Music and HUAWEI Reader have brought high-quality services and content to consumers in more countries and regions.
Huawei also brings users a smarter and more convenient digital life experience with more innovative services, such as Quick Apps, a new type of installation-free apps, providing users with a tap-to-use experience and much less memory space. As well as Ability, powered by Huawei AI technology, includes Content Ability, Card Ability and App Ability, enables high-quality services to be efficiently distributed to users across the world.
To help global partners and developers with innovation, Huawei opens "Chipset-Device-Cloud" capabilities through HMS Core, giving developers the access to Huawei’s Machine Learning Kit, HiAI, AR Engine, etc. HMS Core 5.0, now available globally, will further open Huawei’s software and hardware capabilities to elevate users’ experiences worldwide. On top of that, Huawei offers a one-stop, full-spectrum app development support in over 67 areas through AppGallery Connect, helping developers innovate and carry out efficient operations.
Presently, Huawei Mobile Services has established six regional centers worldwide. Huawei offers localized services globally through DIGIX Lab, HUAWEI Developers, Huawei Developer Day, and many other opportunities. In a fully connected world, Huawei seeks to encourage innovation in both technology and app development among global developers.
Tuesday, 4 August 2020
Governments must take a balance sheet approach to managing their finances through the Covid-19 crisis
·
ACCA, the World Bank and
IFAC say better financial information and thinking must be applied to help
manage public finances
·
Economic indicators
need more clarity to provide a better picture of public sector finances in
turbulent times
The COVID-19 pandemic
means government spending has increased immensely, with the IMF calculating it
to be a staggering US$9 trillion. For ACCA, the
World Bank and IFAC, the concern is that public sector fiscal commitment and interventions are not being captured
accurately by governments due to the way they account for this.
In a new report
published today, Sustainable public finances through
Covid-19, the three organisations are calling for governments
to use public sector balance sheets to properly manage their finances through
the pandemic, paying attention to their public sector net worth. For some, this
means a change in accounting methods from cash to accrual accounting.
Alex Metcalfe, author
of the report and head of public sector policy at ACCA says:
‘This global pandemic crisis could be a catalyst for more governments to adopt
this approach, which can improve decision-making, act as the benchmark for new
fiscal targets, and support governments to rebuild economies for a more
inclusive and greener future.’
By implementing a balance sheet approach,
governments will benefit from:
-
Increased clarity on the true position of
the public finances, with an understanding of the fiscal room available for
further government action;
-
Improved value for money and financially
sustainable decision-making; and
-
Enhanced public sector resilience and better adoption of key financial metrics to drive performance
management.
The report asserts
that governments need to avoid poor-value privatisations, which provide
immediate cash but reduce public sector net worth. Governments also can
minimise reliance on tax increases or austerity by taking a balance sheet
approach to foster sustainable public finances.
Ed Olowo-Okere, Director, Governance Global Practice, World Bank Group says: ‘The pandemic requires that
governments strike a balance between the standard fiscal discipline and control
on the one hand, and speed and flexibility in public financial management on
the other. To build back better, Ministries of Finance need a variety of tools
for better management of public money to sustain the wellbeing of citizens.’
Alta Prinsloo, IFAC
Executive Director, adds: ‘This is about global best practice. No
one government can go it alone – the global nature of the pandemic makes this
apparent. Part of this drive toward global best practice is to ensure that, as
a profession, we discuss with colleagues and policymakers the future of
financial reporting in the public sector. Professional accountants need to be
giving non-finance expert decision makers a clear and trusted view of the
sector’s unfolding financial position.’
Sajjeed
Aslam, head of ACCA Pakistan, adds: ‘The severity of the current crisis
means poor quality accounting data in the public sector is no longer an option.
Now is the time to reset current
economic frameworks and consider what fiscal rules will guide government
decision-making during the recovery phase. The privatisation of any public
assets and services needs to be carefully considered so that they provide value
for money and improve government financial sustainability. And we also need to invest in skills and training as they are an
important part of the economic multiplier.’
Other recommendations for governments include:
·
the need to either reference or use
full-accrual International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), the only
globally accepted accounting standards for the public sector, in the production
of their general purpose financial reports.
·
directing
independent fiscal policy institutions to begin fiscal sustainability reporting
or to increase its frequency. Central finance departments should also be
required to respond publicly to these reports in a timely manner.
· provide
Supreme Audit Institutions with the independence and necessary resources to
conduct performance audits, which may identify cases where public money was not
used effectively, efficiently or economically in combatting the COVID-19
crisis.
And for finance
professionals, ACCA, the World
Bank and IFAC recommends:
· Consider
how any redirection of resource to combat COVID-19 impacts broader metrics of
societal wellbeing and sustainability.
· Conduct
frequent fiscal stress testing, which forecasts the impact of negative
scenarios on public sector balance sheets. This could include the impacts of a
second wave of a coronavirus or an extended economic downturn.
· Produce
accessible summary material, and appropriate narrative and notes within the
financial statements. The accompanying narrative in financial statements helps
users make sense of the figures and should not be too biased or avoid critical
issues.
Sustainable public finances through
Covid-19 includes case studies that analyse the
impact of fiscal policies introduced as a result of COVID-19 on the public
sector balance sheets in 10 countries: Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. These show
that New Zealand is the most fiscally sound country out of those analysed in the
report, with a net worth of 53% of GDP in 2019, compared to the UK government’s
net worth of negative 49% of GDP in 2019.
This report builds on
an ACCA and IFAC report from February 2020 Is Cash Still King? which offers
lessons learned from jurisdictions that have implemented accruals, with the
intention that the current global transition to accruals creates real value and
is more than a ‘compliance exercise’.