RAWALPINDI: The popularity of the shared workplace as a cost effective, no-fuss model has recently risen in Pakistan-- considered one of the world’s largest freelancing economies-- with savvy young enthusiasts in the South Asian country’s urban centers jumping in on the bandwagon to build spaces that break the traditional office mold.
In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, the owners of shared work spaces say they have witnessed demand “through the roof” for flexible office sites-- despite a lull during lockdowns earlier in the year.
“By August and September, most large offices realized the need [for flexible spaces] and demand went through the roof,” said Omar Shah, 31, co-founder and CEO of COLABS, Pakistan’s largest collaborative workspace, which Shah launched with twin brother Ali, in Lahore last year.
“The requirement for large, fancy offices slowly subsided and that is what has driven the demand up,” he added.
“Our contracts range from monthly to daily to yearly with no fixed capital costs or investment. You just walk in with your laptop and we manage the SOP’s.”
There are currently over 100 small co-working spaces in Pakistan, according to global online marketplace ‘coworker.’ Only a handful of these spaces however, have the capacity to seat more than 100 people.
The swanky charcoal COLABS site, launched by the Shah twins in partnership with a Swedish company, accommodates 300. The building, with its cool, millennial aesthetic is complete with sun soaked work rooms, no-fuss oak tables, art on the walls, dine-in cafes, even a neon sign that reads in a scrawl: “There’s no place like work.”
It is home to freelancers, Pakistani startups like popular media site ProperGaanda, as well as mature international businesses looking to set up shop in Pakistan.
“Some of our small to medium businesses are companies based in the US or Europe that have operations in Pakistan, but do not necessarily want to deal with the headache of setting up an office here,” Shah said.
Rent for shared office spaces in Pakistan, a country of 220 million people, ranges from as low as Rs.6000 to upwards of Rs.100,000.
But for Karachi-based freelancer Mishayl Naek, 39, the incentive to set up a co-working space went beyond just business.
Naek decided to set up a community space inspired by her freelance work that often found her without a comfortable- and safe- place to work in the bustling seaside metropolis.
“I looked at existing co-working space but they were very male oriented. This inspired me to open a women-centric co-working space in 2019,” Naek said, which eventually became ‘Pinky Gul.’
In the aftermath of the pandemic, Naek said, demand for partnerships at Pinky Gul have increased as more and more women-run, home-based businesses opened and flourished during COVID-19 lockdowns.
“A lot of home-based businesses opened in Corona times so we have more partnerships than before,” she said.
“Women needed spaces that were multi-faceted, which supported their businesses and created networks.”
Currently, at least 20 women use the informal working zone at Pinky Gul every day.
“Setting up our own office would’ve cost us a lot initially and we didn’t even know if we could manage to sustain the overheads of an office space,” Syed Ahmed Khalid Bukhari, 27, who co-founded a college counselling company in Lahore in 2017, told Arab News.
Bukhari works out of co-working space ‘Daftarkhwan,’ which has office sites in Lahore and Islamabad.
By taking up shop in a co-working space, Bukhari said, the specifics of handling an office-- from generators to general maintenance-- was not his responsibility.
“Our idea was that we’d start off with Daftarkhwan but would get our own office in a year,” Bukhari said.
Now, in their fourth year running and in the middle of a pandemic, Bukhari said his business isn’t even “considering getting our own place.”
But expenses aside, for Shah the best perk of a shared office space is the business community being created within its walls.
“It goes beyond networking here because we don’t just have people meeting one another... we have companies sitting side by side,” he said.
“Let’s say you open a new company. You need a website designed, you need a logo designed. And somebody who can do all that for you... works just down the hall.”
During pandemic, the rise of Pakistan’s shared workplaces
https://arab.news/juyk4
During pandemic, the rise of Pakistan’s shared workplaces
- Demand ‘through the roof’ for flexible office spaces as requirements for big offices subside
- Women-run, home-based businesses that flourished in lockdowns have driven demand up in all-women’s co-working space/
Pakistan calls for Gaza aid access amid Israeli push for full control
- Israel’s war on Gaza has killed around 53,000 Palestinians and displaced two million
- Pakistan says it opposes any attempts to displace Palestinians from their ancestral lands
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office on Friday called for the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Palestinians after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his country’s plan to press ahead with its military campaign and take full control of the Gaza Strip.
Israel imposed a total blockade of the war-torn Palestinian territory in March, cutting off the entry of food, medicine, fuel and other essential supplies. The move triggered a deepening humanitarian crisis, with aid agencies warning of widespread malnutrition and a looming famine, particularly among children.
The blockade has drawn international condemnation, with the United Nations and human rights groups urging its immediate lifting on legal and humanitarian grounds. While Israel permitted limited aid deliveries this month, UN officials described the efforts as “a drop in the ocean” for Gaza’s 2.1 million residents.
“The expansion of Israeli ground operations in Gaza, as well as its announcement to take control of all of Gaza, poses a grave threat to efforts aimed toward achieving peace and stability in the region,” the foreign office spokesperson, Ambassador Shafqat Ali Khan, said during his weekly media briefing. “In addition, Israel also continues to deliberately obstruct critical humanitarian aid from reaching millions in dire need.”
“Pakistan reiterates its call on the international community for an immediate end to Israel’s genocidal campaign and to ensure a lasting ceasefire in Gaza,” he continued. “It also urges concrete steps toward provision of unimpeded humanitarian supplies to millions of Palestinians in dire need, as well as to hold Israel accountable for its egregious crimes.”
Khan condemned Israeli attacks on hospitals and other critical infrastructure during its military campaign.
He also maintained that Pakistan opposed any attempts to displace Palestinians from their ancestral lands, expand illegal Israeli settlements or annex any part of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The war in Gaza began in October 2023 and has so far killed about 53,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of Gaza’s two million residents.
Pakistan says initial probe confirms Indian involvement in school bus attack in Balochistan
- Balochistan has been the site of an insurgency for decades, though it has intensified more recently
- Islamabad says Indian ‘terror proxies’ have been tasked to accentuate their attacks in Balochistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Friday that its initial probe into an attack on a school bus in the Balochistan province has confirmed the involvement of “Indian terror proxies,” promising to defeat the “nefarious” designs.
Balochistan has been the site of an insurgency for decades, though it has intensified more recently, with groups like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) carrying out high-profile attacks on civilians and security forces.
On Wednesday, at least seven people, including six children, were killed when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeted the school bus en route to an army-run school in Balochistan’s Khuzdar.
Speaking at a press conference alongside a Pakistani military spokesman, Interior Secretary Khurram Muhammad Agha called the Khuzdar bombing an attack on “our values, our education and on the very fabric of our society.”
“Initial findings confirm that this attack is in continuity of a broader pattern of violence sponsored by India through Fitna Al-Hindustan (FAH) operating under the tutelage and the patronage of the Indian intelligence agency R&AW,” he said, without offering any proof to link New Delhi to Wednesday’s assault.
The Indian administration has distanced itself from the Khuzdar school bus bombing, attributing such acts of violence to Pakistan’s “internal failures.”
The FAH comprises several separatist groups and independently operating cells who have been operating in the insurgency-hit southwestern Pakistani province, according to the Pakistani officials. These cells, after having suffered immense casualties in past few years, have now resorted to hitting “soft targets.”
“The terror proxies of Hindustan [India] have been tasked to accentuate their heinous attacks of terrorism in Balochistan and elsewhere, sabotage development in the region, incite fear among the population and derail the journey of peace and development in an attempt to repeat their playbook of 1971 [a reference to the fall of Dhaka],” he said.
During the presser, Pakistani military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry detailed various incidents of violence that he said were carried out by India-backed groups.
“Very recently the media international media has seen self-given confessions and acknowledgements of multiple surrendered terrorists of this Fitna Al-Hindustan who told that how Hindustan is funding, planning and carrying out terrorist acts in Balochistan,” he noted.
Relations between Pakistan and India touched a new low last month, when gunmen killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir in an attack India blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad denies complicity and Lt Gen Chaudhry said New Delhi had still not provided any evidence to back up its accusation.
A day earlier, Pakistan’s top diplomat at the United Nations (UN) said they would raise the school bus attack at the UN and present evidence of Indian involvement to the international community.
“This was a heinous terrorist act directed against children, against students, [which is] totally unacceptable and condemnable,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told Arab News in an interview.
Interior Secretary Agha said Pakistan and its people, particularly those in Balochistan, reject such “nefarious designs” and Islamabad had the capacity and will to dismantle these networks and to bring the perpetrators and their handlers to justice.
“I assure you that the state in collaboration with the provincial governments and the state apparatus will defeat them,” he said.
“These Indian sponsored terrorists have no place in Pakistan. We have the wherewithal and the commitment to bring an end to this violence. Our resolved is firm and our response will be decisive.”
Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations and frequently accuse each other of fomenting militancy in the other’s territory. Both countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.
Pakistan to offer US firms concessions on mining investment in tariff talks, says minister
- Pakistan would put its offer of concessions for mining investment to US officials during talks over tariffs in the coming weeks
- Pakistan’s Reko Diq gold mining project in Balochistan seeks up to $2 billion in financing, including up to $1 billion from US bank
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan plans to offer concessions to US companies to invest in its mining sector as part of negotiations with Washington over tariffs, its commerce minister told Reuters, as Islamabad seeks to capitalize on the Trump administration’s interest in boosting trade with South Asia.
Pakistan faces a potential 29 percent tariff on exports to the United States due to a $3 billion trade surplus with the world’s biggest economy, under tariffs announced by Washington last month on countries around the world. Tariffs were subsequently suspended for 90 days so negotiations could take place.
Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jam Kamal said that Islamabad will offer US businesses opportunities to invest in mining projects primarily in Pakistan’s Balochistan province through joint ventures with local companies, providing concessions like lease grants.
The minister said that would be in addition to efforts to increase imports from the United States, particularly cotton and edible oils, which are currently in short supply in Pakistan.
Pakistan would put its offer of concessions for mining investment to US officials during talks over tariffs in the coming weeks.
Kamal did not give further information on the bidding process of these mines or other details.
“There is untapped potential for US companies in Pakistan, from mining machinery to hydrocarbon ventures,” he said in an interview with Reuters conducted on Thursday.
Pakistan’s Reko Diq copper and gold mining project in Balochistan seeks up to $2 billion in financing, including $500 million to $1 billion from the US Export-Import Bank, with term sheets expected by early in the third quarter of this year, its project director told Reuters last month.
The mine could generate $70 billion in free cash flow and $90 billion in operating cash flow over its lifespan.
US President Donald Trump has said that he’s working on “big deals” with both India and Pakistan, following Washington’s key role in brokering a ceasefire between Pakistan and India earlier this month following the worst fighting in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
“The previous US administration focused more on India, but Pakistan is now being recognized as a serious trade partner,” Kamal said.
Pakistan will gradually lower tariffs in its upcoming federal budget, Kamal said.
He said that the United States has not specified trade barriers or priority sectors. The US Embassy in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pakistan business confidence improves by 16% points, survey reveals
- The development comes over a week after the IMF approved a loan review for Pakistan, unlocking a $1 billion payment
- Pakistan’s stocks, which rose more than 80 percent last year, have also largely resisted the pressures in recent weeks
KARACHI: Business confidence has significantly improved among investors in Pakistan that is largely attributed to macroeconomic stability, declining inflation and anticipated improvements in business conditions over the next six months, a survey by Pakistan’s Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) revealed on Thursday.
The Business Confidence Index (BCI) Survey – Wave 27, conducted across Pakistan in March-April 2025, shows the overall business confidence improved by 16 percentage points from negative 5 percent to positive 11 percent, compared to the previous Wave 26 survey in October-November 2024.
The Manufacturing sector led the recovery, improving from negative 3 percent to positive 15 percent, followed by the Retail/Wholesale sector, which rose from negative 18 percent to positive 2 percent in the latest survey. The Services sector maintained a steady outlook and jumped from 2 percent to 10 percent positive.
“The uptick in business confidence is a clear sign that our economic direction is on the right track. We are focused on creating a conducive environment for investment, supporting private sector growth, and ensuring long-term macroeconomic resilience,” Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb was quoted as saying by the OICCI.
“The improved sentiment among businesses is both encouraging and a validation of our collective efforts.”
The development comes more than a week after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a loan program review for Pakistan, unlocking a $1 billion payment which the State Bank of Pakistan said had been received. A fresh $1.4 billion loan was also approved under the IMF’s climate resilience fund.
Since averting a default in 2023, the South Asian country has been making rigorous efforts to boost its economy by offering various incentives to investors, particularly from abroad.
Pakistan’s stocks, which rose more than 80 percent last year, have largely resisted selling pressures in recent weeks, despite the country’s conflict with India that saw the two sides strike each other with missiles, drones and artillery.
Commenting on the survey’s findings, OICCI President Yousaf Hussain said the overall business confidence had shown a notable improvement across the business community over the past two years.
“This sharp recovery in the Business Confidence in the latest Wave 27 reflects the resilience of Pakistan’s business sector and its readiness to seize emerging growth opportunities,” he said.
“It is heartening to see positive momentum across key sectors, which reflects improved sentiment and growing trust in the country’s economic direction.”
Hussain said there must be greater policy consistency, transparency and active engagement with key stakeholders, including OICCI members, to maintain this growing positivity in the business confidence.
The BCI Wave 27 survey revealed increased optimism for the next six months, with 45 percent of the respondents expressing positive expectations.
“Key contributors to this positive outlook include economic growth, improved government policies, investment climate,” the survey report read.
“Despite the positive trend, 53 percent of the survey respondents reported a negative outlook on business conditions over the past six months, which is a substantial improvement from 66 percent negative sentiments in Wave 26. The key concerns indicated in the survey related to political stability, Rupee FX parity, Energy, and trade policies.”
The BCI of foreign investors, who OICCI members randomly selected for the survey, showed a remarkable increase from positive 6 percent to 17 percent, according to the findings.
This improvement is primarily attributed to better global business climate, an improved industry environment in Pakistan over the past six months, and expectations of increased capital investment in the coming six months.
“The latest BCI Wave 27 results were better than anticipated, with positive expectations reflected across all major sectors. Employment prospects, expansion plans, and investment expectations demonstrated notable gains, particularly in the Manufacturing and Retail sectors,” OICCI Secretary-General Abdul Aleem said.
“Despite notable improvement on the overall BCI, the new investment plans overall showed an improvement of 19 percent, but remained negative, which is an area of concern and needs to be addressed to further accelerate economic growth, energize large-scale manufacturing, trade and export.”
Pakistani Naila Kiani summits India’s highest Kanchenjunga peak, poses with national flag
- Naila Kiani reached the summit of Kanchenjunga at 6:30am local time, becoming Pakistan’s leading female mountaineer with 12 ‘eight-thousanders’ to her name
- The Dubai-based Pakistani climber stands on the threshold of joining a global elite of only 17 women who have conquered all 14 peaks above 8,000-meter height
ISLAMABAD: Dubai-based Pakistani mountaineer Naila Kiani has scaled 8,586-meter-high Kanchenjunga, the tallest peak in India, her organizer said on Friday, as the climber posed with a Pakistani flag at the summit.
Kiani has become the first Pakistani woman to scale 12 of the world’s 14 peaks above the height of 8,000 meters, according to Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP), which arranges various expeditions.
Kiani, who stands on the threshold of joining a global elite of only 17 women who have conquered all 14 eight-thousanders, reached the Kanchenjunga summit early Friday, the Imagine Nepal expedition organizer said.
“At around 7:00 AM NPT [Nepal time], our incredible team of 10 climbers successfully summited Kanchenjunga (8,586m) — the world’s third-highest mountain,” Imagine Nepal said on Facebook.
“Naila Kiani reached the summit of Kanchenjunga at 6:30am local time, becoming Pakistan’s leading female mountaineer with 12 eight-thousanders to her name,” Alpine Club of Pakistan quoted Dawa Futi Sherpa, operations director at Imagine Nepal, as saying.
The Pakistani club said this was a “monumental milestone” in the history of Pakistani mountaineering and a moment of immense national pride.
“From the towering heights of Everest and K2 to the perilous slopes of Annapurna and Lhotse, her journey tells a powerful story of grit, resilience and an unshakable will,” the ACP said.
“This is not just a personal achievement— it is a symbol of empowerment for women in sports, a beacon of hope and inspiration for Pakistan, and a proud moment for every mountaineering enthusiast.”
Kiani has previously summited Mount Makalu (8,485m), Broad Peak (8,047 meters), Annapurna (8,091 meters), K2 (8,611 meters), Lhotse (8,516 meters), Gasherbrum 1 (8,068 meters), Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters), Nanga Parbat (8,125 meters), Mount Everest (8,849 meters), Manaslu (8,156 meters) and Cho Oyu (8,201 meters) mountains.
