Amir Paracha is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Unilever Pakistan Limited. He joined the Board on 1st February 2020.
He joined Unilever Pakistan in 2000 and has held various senior management positions in Pakistan and North Africa Middle East cluster over his 20 years with the Company. Prior to taking over as the CEO, in his role as VP Customer Development, he helped deliver solid results and maintained a strong growth mindset, successfully inspiring a transformative vision for the future.
Amir continues to actively experiment with disruptive business models and has championed inclusion across the Unilever ecosystem in Pakistan.
Amir began his career at the Royal Dutch Shell Oil company in July 1996 and has done his Masters in Business Administration from the Institute of Business Administration.
We are 149,000 people across the world, we are over 400 brand names in over 190 countries, we are a global company with a global purpose.
We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace
It’s why we come to work. It’s why we’re in business. It’s how we inspire exceptional performance.
Back in 1883, Sunlight Soap was launched in the UK by our founder – it was pioneering, it was innovative and it had a purpose: to popularise cleanliness and bring it within reach of ordinary people. That was sustainable living, even then. We now have over 400 brands and we are still driven by purpose.
We want to do more good for our planet and our society – not just less harm. We want to act on the social and environmental issues facing the world and we want to enhance people’s lives with our products.
We’ve been pioneers, innovators and future-makers for over 120 years – we plan to continue doing that. And we plan to do it sustainably.
Creating a carbon shift
The chemical industry is the backbone to modern manufacturing, but it is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, which provide 85% of the feedstock or raw fuel it uses.* You can’t make cleaning products without chemicals, but you can make chemicals without fossil fuels.
That’s why we’ve committed to eliminating virgin petrochemicals from our cleaning and laundry formulations. As part of Clean Future Strategy, Unilever developed the ‘Carbon Rainbow’ to help illustrate how we’re working to shift the carbon inputs used in our products to renewable and recycled sources.
We are working to replace non-renewable virgin fossil fuels, also known as ‘black’ carbon, with other renewable and recycled carbon sources. These include ‘purple’ carbon captured from the air or from industrial emissions, ‘blue’ carbon from sources in the ocean, ‘grey’ carbon from waste materials and ‘green’ carbon from plants and biomass.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Wednesday released data which showed that the trade deficit widened to $25.5 billion in the first six months (July-December) of current fiscal year due to a significant surge in imports that outpaced the increase in exports. The deficit was $13.2 billion (or 106%) higher than the comparative period of previous fiscal year, it added. The annual trade deficit target of $28.4 billion has become irrelevant due to higher imports.
Imports during the first half increased two-thirds to nearly $40.6 billion. In absolute terms, the imports grew $16.1 billion, according to the PBS.
The central bank has introduced a cash margin requirement (CMR) for more imported goods besides curtailing consumer financing to ease the import pressure. However, these measures have failed to contain imports that have risen to a new peak.
PBS said that exports of goods remained at $2.7 billion in December, higher by 16% (or $374 million) over the same month of previous year. The trade deficit widened 85% year-on-year to $4.9 billion in December 2021.
The central bank’s foreign currency reserves are constantly on the decline and dipped further to $17.9 billion, as the impact of a $3 billion Saudi Arabian loan is being diluted.
The State Bank of Pakistan on Wednesday further amended foreign exchange regulations requiring exporters to bring export proceeds.
The first consignment of 5,500 mobile sets of 4G smartphones manufactured by Inovi Telecom was exported to the UAE on Friday.
However, the local manufacturers of mobile phone sets have stressed the need for an export supportive policy, allowing Pakistan to beat competitors in the Middle East region.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on Saturday congratulated the company for the achievement and hoped the exports of smart phones would increase further. “This is the result of concerted efforts for the development of mobile device manufacturing ecosystem in the country,” said the regulator in a statement.
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