The dealers’ margin on petrol and diesel has been increased by 14 per cent with immediate effect and Rs1.34 per litre allowed for the dealers of both petroleum products.

The dealers’ profit has gone up from Rs8.64 to Rs9.98 per litre following the hike.

The rise in the dealers’ margin is effective from immediately.

The government had raised the price of fuel by Rs3.81 a litre the previous nite, bringing its new price to Rs341.59 a litre.

Likewise, the price of high-speed diesel was increased by Rs3.59 per litre, with the new price set at Rs368.29 per litre.

During the outgoing week of business, the benchmark KSE-100 Index closed down by 2,938 points at 177,166.

The index fluctuated in a range of 5,048 points over the week. Its high was 181,158 and its low was 176,110.

The trading activity remained healthy with almost 4.22 billion shares being traded during the week in deals amounting to about Rs205 billion.

However, the entire capitalisation of the market fell by Rs247 billion during the week to Rs19,882 billion.

In the stock market, the weekly performance was mainly negative as the benchmark index closed the week significantly lower than its previous finish.

 The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has suspended all trade activities, exchanges and financial transactions with Iran until further notice, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, citing regional escalation that it said undermined regional and international peace and security.

The announcement came after the UAE’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that it had detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran, the first such incident reported since a May 4 strike on the Fujairah port.

In a statement later, the ministry said the missiles targeted “maritime traffic” based on its assessments. Both missiles fell into the sea, it said.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected early on Wednesday the statement by the UAE, describing it as “baseless.”

Baghaei called on “all regional parties” to refrain from making “unsubstantiated accusations” against Iran, according to Al Jazeera.

The spokesperson said that any assessment of the situation must account for what he called the continued “malicious actions” of the US and Israel against regional peace and security, pointing to what he described as a history of false-flag operations in the region.

The missile launch comes as a 60-day window for US-Iranian peace talks expired on Monday without a breakthrough, raising fears of a new escalation in the conflict that has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz since February.

“The defence ministry affirms its full readiness to deal with any threats and firmly confront anything that aims to destabilise the state’s security,” it said in a statement.

The UAE’s interior ministry sent a phone alert earlier on Tuesday to residents stating that the situation was safe and people should resume normal activities after an earlier alert warning of a missile threat.

The UAE had accused Iran recently of attacking its state-owned ADNOC vessels while transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has not claimed responsibility for the attacks on ADNOC vessels. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have previously threatened action against vessels transiting the strait if they are linked to Tehran’s adversaries or fail to comply with Iranian directives.