Short-term strategies to strengthen the economy yield benefits for one year or two but the country later has to face decline. Going through the tales of countries who resuscitated their economies from the precipice tells us that with political consensus, people’s contributions, and long-term planning, they became able to give new life to their nation.
It took China decades to reach this place where it could challenge the hegemony of the USA. India’s journey of economic revival also started in 1991 whose results are before us as the country has earned significant importance and is ready to thwart the superiority of China in Asia. Turkey also recovered from economic turmoil after focusing on long-term strategies.
Pakistan is going through one of its harder times. Though the threat of default has been averted the steps taken to bolster foreign exchange reserves will not be sufficient. Pakistan is at a crossroads and is desperately waiting for economic reforms that can direct its trajectory to an ascending position. Without them, the misery unleashed on lower segments of society will further exacerbate.
PM has recently unveiled a long-awaited “Uraan Pakistan Program”. The program was due to be unveiled quite early but the dates were postponed many times. This program presents a five-year road map in which special emphasis has been paid to five Es; export, e-Pakistan, environment, equity and empowerment, and energy.
This program augurs the green pastures for Pakistan by setting targets for 2028 2035 and 2047.
The program aims at a 6% increase in GDP, enhancing exports to $60 billion, expanding the tax-to-GDP ratio to 17%, and bringing in $10bn dollar investment in the business sector which will produce 1 million new jobs annually. For 2035, the program has set a target of making Pakistan $1tr economy and $3tr by 2047.
A special emphasis is paid to the digitization of Pakistan, increasing public equity empowering them to tackle life challenges, and addressing climate change by introducing a climate-resilient program. The program is versatile in its ambitions. Now there is a need to take the right steps in the right direction to materialize so flaunted ambitions.
Critical Analysis:
While it is a good sign to see the government converging its attention to real issues and key figures the path, strategies, and methodologies to be adopted to gain them are in darkness. The government is hinting toward the east but her actions are taking the country toward the west. There is a stark contrast between what the government is doing and what she is proclaiming.
The government is talking about producing 200000 It graduates annually and enhancing the potential of the IT sector so that the ICT exports can be increased which stand at $3.2 billion meager compared to India’s $200bn. But the golden steps the policymakers are taking towards it are often disruptions of the internet in the name of cybersecurity, installation of firewalls against colloquial digital terrorism, and registration of VPNs to breach the too security mechanisms. In this scenario, it is hard to understand how exports can be increased.
Expanding exports potential to €60bn dollars has been a desire of many successive governments but it has been an unfulfilled dream for them due to many hurdles. The current situation in Pakistan is not looking favorable for an increase in productivity. Already running industries are closing their operations due to over-taxation, absurd behavior of regulating authorities, and power issues. Security issues and business discouraging atmosphere are repelling foreign investors and now special emphasis has been paid to innovation to increase productivity.
Although the government has been active in introducing many tax reforms by introducing new terminologies like filers, nonfilers, later fillers, eligible, and ineligible, the result is we Are Rs 356 bn short of our target for the first quarter of FY25. Instead of widening the tax framework, the salaried segment is further being burdened.
With all these impediments in the path, these flaunted figures appear nothing more than publicity stints. We have seen them many times sometimes to win public support and sometimes to obtain preference within party ranks. The Pakistani populace is looking for concrete steps. The secret to all these targets lies in effective planning, honest pursuance of planning, adaptability to current needs, and a corruption-free environment. For all this to be obtained, national dialogue and political census are the key. The government's actions will soon tell her seriousness for strengthing of economy and nation-building.