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By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, the importance of Gwadar to China and Pakistan is discussed in detail. By applying geoeconomic approach and based on the historical approach, geographical and geopolitical conditions and international development trends of Gwadar port, the authors develop the analytical framework to analyze the Gwadar port and studied its importance in the development of China and Pakistan, as well as the positive influence on the economic growth of both countries.

A geoeconomic study is done to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship, as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations.

The results show that Gwadar Port's development could enhance the economic security of both China and Pakistan. With the opening of Gwadar Port, oil and energy in the Middle East will be imported directly to China through Pakistan's oil pipeline. This is not only oil but also goods from Central Asia, and even Europe and the USA will land from Gwadar Port and enter China through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The development of Gwadar port under the CPEC program could also dramatically increase the capacity of Pakistan's maritime trade while reducing its dependence on the current largest port, Karachi, near the India border.

Geo-economics theory is used to run a more profound and more comprehensive analysis of China–Pakistan economic relationship as geoeconomic includes interrelations of geographical, location, geopolitical and economic factors in international relations. By combining geopolitical and economic factors and from a geoeconomic perspective, this study seeks to analyze the Gwadar port development and its implications for both China and Pakistan.

This study aims to explore why marine development and maritime security in Pakistan are significant and what the Chinese concerns are. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyse a growing Pak–China bilateral interests, particularly at Gwadar, to achieve the geostrategic objectives of China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The study adopts a qualitative means to discuss the significance of China’s ambitions towards the CPEC project concerning strategic deep-sea management and maritime regulations in the region, with a particular focus on the Gwadar Port.

The paper concludes that the Gwadar Port is a critical element for maritime security in the whole region. The study also provides an analysis of national and international, security and legal challenges associated with CPEC.

Most of the potential outcomes have already been discussed in public, though a limited academic discussion is available on the legal aspects. It is particularly so with regard to the development and capacity building in the maritime sector of Pakistan under this project. This study aims to explore why marine development and maritime security in Pakistan is significant and what the Chinese concerns are.

The purpose of this research is to identify major barriers to the implementation of reverse logistics (RL). Also, the study addresses best practices among reuse, remanufacture, recycling, refurbishment and repair as alternatives for RL processes.

This study targets supply chain management experts for their opinions regarding the identification of critical barriers and alternatives for RL implementation. Their opinions were extracted through a Web questionnaire based on 14 criteria with 5 alternatives. The tools of multi-criteria decision-making are used for analysis, i.e. fuzzy VIKOR and fuzzy TOPSIS.

The results indicate that lack of recognition of competitive advantage to be gained through RL practice is the most critical barrier to RL implementation. The least barrier or major facilitator for RL is “supportive initiative for end-of-life products.” The top-ranked alternative in this study is reuse followed by remanufacturing. The least important alternative is “repair” in the case of Pakistan. These alternatives are ranked based on “q values” derived through fuzzy VIKOR.

The results of this study can only be generalized for the manufacturing sector of Pakistan during the period of the study.

The findings of this study will assist managers in deploying the best practices concerning RL.

Fuzzy VIKOR and fuzzy TOPSIS have not been applied to RL alternatives in previous research.

Based on the service eco-systems perspective, this paper evaluates the strategies and actions adopted by the Government of Pakistan to handle the COVID-19 crisis with the involvement of multiple actors including public, private, third-sector organizations and civil society.

The paper is based on an in-depth analysis of secondary sources including research articles, policy documents, policy briefs, governmental reports, third party evaluations/reports and media publications.

A multi-stakeholder approach was evident during the pandemic with an effort to better manage the crisis which has exerted immense social, cultural, economic and political impacts on the lives of the citizens. Collaborative efforts among stakeholders (government, private and third sector) were witnessed, resulting in a coherent response. The successful management of COVID-19 in Pakistan is attributed to multiple factors including the formation of a specialized public organization which effectively and proactively took data-driven informed decisions and aggregated the efforts of the federal and provincial governments for a timely response.

This paper gives insights for policymakers to create a sustainable post-pandemic socio-economic environment by building resilient structures across the government while promoting cooperation and collaboration. It suggests strategies for policymakers responsible for providing sustainable societal solutions to combat the social, economic and administrative challenges under the pandemic. As Pakistan has managed and contained the pandemic in a relatively efficient way, it is hoped that this paper can provide a learning experience for other countries with similar national contexts.

This study attempts to recognize the effects of the Pakistan–China free trade agreements (PCFTA) on promoting trade between the two economies.

Following the concept of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and free trade agreements, the study first identifies those commodities in which Pakistan and China have a robust RCA and then analyze the effect of PCFTA on the export value of those commodities for the bilateral trade between Pakistan and China. The study used the panel data in which more than the top 150 importers (j) have been selected for each case of Pakistan and China for the period of 2003–2015.

The study concludes that even with the higher convergence rate, the good RCA does not guarantee a positive effect of the free trade agreement on the commodities.

The study contributes to the existing literature by integrating RCA with the gravity model by adopting a sequential mode for Pakistan–China free trade agreement.

In view of organizational inertia, with the occurrence of a major event, though resource rigidity minimizes, however simultaneously, it increases process rigidity, which creates difficulties in motivating managers and dealing with the agency problem. Therefore, keeping in mind the high demand created by the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor and Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme in the cement sector of Pakistan, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate governance (CG) on the cost of equity (COE) in the cement sector, to deal with the problems surging during and after the completion of these projects and highlight further opportunities for the cement sector of Pakistan.

CG is a qualitative concept therefore, eight proxies have been used to measure it along with the two control variables. This study uses balance panel data of six years from 2012 to 2017, collected from 18 companies of the cement sector of Pakistan. Descriptive statistics have been used to describe the data, correlation matrix to see the nature of the relationship, and Pooled OLS as the estimation technique, while to analyze the data a statistical package 13 has been used. To measure the COE, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) has been used.

Regression results suggest that block ownership, insider ownership and the board size are insignificant, while CEO tenure is negatively and significantly associated with the COE. Non-executive directors, independence and CEO duality are insignificant; however, diversity is positively and significantly associated with the COE. Moreover, the mean value of the COE is 8.22 percent for the cement sector, while the coefficient of determination of the model under study is 74 percent.

This paper is based on the data from the cement sector of Pakistan only. Therefore, this is the reason that these results cannot be generalized on the whole economy of Pakistan.

This study helps in finding out the COE value specific to the cement sector, which will help this sector to evaluate the capital budgeting decision more precisely and accurately than before. Moreover, the association of diversity as positive, while independence as negative with the COE highlights a room for improvement in the implementation of CG codes by SECP. This study also helps to mitigate the impact of inertia, the after-effects of high demand, and managing the agency problem in the cement sector.

This is the first study using CG data collected just after the revised promulgation of CG codes in 2012, along with a wide range of eight proxies measuring CG and its impact on the COE in the cement sector.

Refugee entrepreneurship is increasing because of the increased influx of refugees around the globe. This leaves us with the question that how refugees integrate economically in the host country in the presence of all social, emotional and economic constraints. Existing literature suggests looking into the role of social capital to address refugee economic integration, particularly in developing nations. To acknowledge this call, this paper aims to explore the impact of family social capital on the economic integration process. Particularly, this study has investigated the Afghan refugee entrepreneurial activities and the integration process of Afghan refugees in economic and social spaces in Pakistan.

The study is rooted in 18 in-depth interviews with five participants that run small businesses in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

The findings revealed Afghan refugee entrepreneurs, develop a different type of family social capital i.e. horizontal and vertical social capital. Afterward, when the acculturation pace up across refugees’ generations then they accumulate bridging social capital gradually. The process of economic integration happens in different stages as also shown in the existing literature. Based on (Berry, 2003; Evansluong et al., 2019; Khulman, 1991) economic integration process this paper has discussed three main stages (entry in labor market, gradual integration and gradual sub-merging in host society) of Afghan refugee economic integration in Pakistan and further this study has shown how different steps are arranged within these stages to smoothen the integration process.

With this research, this paper calls for a more nuanced approach to address the challenges that are faced by refugees during their economic integration. Future research on Afghan economic and social integration can contribute to a better understanding of refugee settlement, well-being and self-sufficient status in host countries. One of the limitations of the study is the focus on male participants because female Afghan refugees do not work mostly because of strong patriarchal structures observed in refugee Afghan groups.

Most Afghan entrepreneurs consider them as Pakistani and do not want to repatriate to Afghanistan. This provides an opportunity for Pakistani policymakers to provide regulations and opportunities to Afghan entrepreneurs who want to stay in Pakistan and contribute to their family well-being and economic income generation and employment in Pakistan.

The role of the family acts as a means to refugee entrepreneurs’ integration in the host country. Strong migration networks and dense family configurations are a source of pride, responsibility, resilience and self-esteem for Afghan refugees to start and expand their businesses.

This study provides the opportunity to explore the under-researched role of family social capital in the migrant and refugee entrepreneurship literature.

This paper explores the interaction and impact of political disruptions on textile supply chain performance in Pakistan. A qualitative approach is adopted to explore the linkages and relationships between political disruptions and supply chain disruptions and performance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at 25 different textile manufacturing firms. This study confirmed the prevalence of severe and variegated impacts of political disruptions on the textile supply chain. Supply chain disruption is found to be a key mediating factor that directly and indirectly affect supply chain performance through an increased production and delivery lead-time, transportation delays, interruptions of raw material supplies to plants and distributors and the restricted access to workplaces for suppliers and workers. The linkages are represented through vicious circles that illustrate the interactions and inter-relationships between disrupted supply chain and performance. This study provides empirical evidence to help government to formulate pertinent labour laws and industrial policy to mitigate political disruptions and minimise deleterious effects of supply chain disruption on production and distribution networks whilst respecting and protecting the democratic rights of people.

This paper aims to expand foreign investors' understanding of potential return enhancement and risk diversification advantages offered by equity market of Pakistan through comparing its performance to performances in other markets and investigating what matters for investing in Pakistan's market.

Comparative analysis of Pakistan Stock Exchange is performed using data for 22 developed and 22 emerging markets over the period 1993–2019. Cross-sectional analysis is performed using data for 130 non-financial firms from Pakistan and Carhart (1997) and Fama and French (2015) models are applied. The role of liquidity with five-factor model is analyzed using turnover rate and Amihud (2002) illiquidity cost as liquidity measures.

Pakistan's equity offers substantial diversification benefits if added to developed market portfolios. However, observed large returns come together with inverted premia for most traditional factors indicating that investors may want to invest preferably in big stocks with low book-to-market and momentum. Finally, global investors can invest in high yielding stocks with low liquidity risk owing to positive connection between liquidity and returns.

This study will provide investment model for foreign investors to enhance their portfolio returns. Policy makers in Pakistan must identify regulatory steps to facilitate foreign investments.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which identifies efficiency gains offered by Pakistan's equity for global investors.

The European Union (EU) has notified its revised Generalized System of Preference (GSP) on 31 October, 2012 which will come into effect from 1 January, 2014. The EU is also in the process of, or contemplating, to sign Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with many developing countries. Recently, EU has officially announced initiation of FTA negotiations with USA. Such preferential tariff arrangements could lead to significant erosion of preferences enjoyed currently by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In this backdrop, the main objective of the present study is to investigate the economic impacts originating from preference erosion in the EU market which could potentially affect LDCs in general, Bangladesh in particular. In this context, a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis has been developed by using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model and database to explore the aggregate impact of the preferential erosion as well as sectoral implications for which different partial equilibrium analyses were used. The analysis evince that if the EU eliminates all tariffs for Pakistan, India and Vietnam, Bangladesh's real GDP could decrease by 0.27 percent whilst welfare loss could be to the tune of US$ 54 million. Total exports to the EU will be reduced by 0.18 percent; consequently, Bangladesh’s terms of trade and exports of textiles and clothing could be fall by about 1 percent. The product level disaggregated analysis using RCA and unit price of major items also indicate that a number of products including textiles and clothing will be confronted with formidable market access difficulties in the EU.