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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s online businesses risk losing nearly Rs200 million ($700,000) a day as Internet services slowed nationwide on Tuesday amid widespread disruption caused by “maintenance activity” on a major submarine cable, according to the Chain Store Association of Pakistan (CAP).

The slowdown followed announcements by major Internet providers, including Nayatel and the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), that emergency maintenance was being carried out on one of the country’s undersea cables.

Nayatel said in a post on X that the work, which began around 11 a.m., could last up to 18 hours and cause Internet slowness across Pakistan.

Mobile Internet services were also suspended in Islamabad and Lahore over the weekend following protests by the religio-political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), whose activists clashed repeatedly with police.

“Our estimate is that when Internet services, both mobile and fixed broadband, are down nationwide for 24 hours, it causes approximately Rs200 million in daily losses,” Asfandyar Farrukh, the CAP chairman, told Arab News.

CAP represents more than 150 of Pakistan’s leading retail businesses and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

He added that the full financial impact of Tuesday’s slowdown could only be assessed after 24 hours of monitoring.

GIG ECONOMY

For gig-economy workers, however, the disruption means a complete loss of income.

Muhammad Riaz, an online cab driver, said slow or no Internet means he cannot feed his four children.

“It drives me crazy when the Internet is slow,” he said. “It takes half an hour just to get one ride. You know how Internet signals are in the streets. Even in normal places, it can get very difficult, extremely difficult.”

Riaz said he earned nothing when the Internet was down over the weekend, as he had to stay home.

“Ordinary people are the ones suffering the most,” he continued. “A daily-wage earner, if he doesn’t earn during the day, he can’t eat. How long can he feed his children like this?”

Adil Zahid, a food delivery rider, said outages make his work impossible.

“When we face signal issues here in Pakistan, our delivery work stops, which causes us major losses,” he said. “Our daily loss without Internet is around two to three thousand rupees [$7-$11].”

Zahid added that without Internet access, he cannot use navigation maps or receive orders.

Another delivery worker, Waseem Barkat, said the disruptions make it extremely difficult to contact customers or locate delivery points.

“When we go to different places, we can’t contact the customer because their number and location details don’t load properly,” he said. “Everything just shuts down in those areas.”

Digital rights experts say such disruptions ripple far beyond the gig economy, hampering productivity and eroding public confidence in the country’s digital infrastructure.

“Internet disruptions, whether planned or unplanned, inflict massive economic losses on online businesses, disrupt supply chains and erode customer trust,” said Haroon Baloch, a digital rights activist.

“In a digital economy where every second of downtime can translate to millions in losses for e-commerce platforms, freelancers and startups, these interruptions aren’t just inconveniences,” he continued. “They become barriers to growth and innovation.”

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s benchmark share index jumped over 7,000 points on Tuesday, with analysts attributing the spike to easing geopolitical and domestic tensions, which lifted investor sentiment.

The KSE-100 index surged by 7,032.60 points, or 4.44 percent, to close at 165,476.02, compared to the previous close of 158,443.42.

Sana Tawfik, the Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, said the index surged past the 165,000 level, marking one of the largest point gains in the history of the index.

“The rally was fueled by easing geopolitical and domestic political tensions, coupled with renewed investor interest as the results season commenced,” she told Arab News over the phone.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) fell sharply on Monday as cross-border hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan prompted broad-based selling across key sectors.

The two neighbors exchanged heavy cross-border fire over the weekend, leaving 23 Pakistani soldiers and over 200 Afghan Taliban fighters dead, according to the Pakistan military.

The country also witnessed clashes between the government and a religio-political party striving to march on Islamabad in the last few days before their movement was halted on the outskirts of eastern Lahore.

Meanwhile, Ahsan Mehanti, Chief Executive Officer of Arif Habib Commodities, said stocks showed a strong recovery as investors welcomed improving Pakistan-US relations, progress on the Gaza ceasefire deal and easing tensions with Afghanistan.

“Renewed hopes for a positive Pakistan-International Monetary Fund and World Bank review meeting for the release of an IMF tranche next month played a catalytic role in record bullish activity at the PSX,” he said.

Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb arrived in Washington on Sunday to attend the IMF and World Bank annual meetings and hold talks on investment, taxation and economic reforms.