There’s nothing wrong with aiming high. So when Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif wishes the Export Development Board to take the country’s exports to $60 billion, he appears to be counting on recent flickers of hope from international credit ratings that very optimistically believed in the ongoing year to raise Pakistan’s economic growth to 3.2 percent.
Exports, by far, remain the most sustainable way to manage the balance of payments but to expect the industrial sector to magically outperform itself by an overwhelming 113 per cent in bold defiance to IMF’s forecast ($37.2 billion) would perhaps be akin to setting oneself for failure. Being overambitious while being underprepared, such targets can make for colourful headlines because nothing speaks more to the morale of a standing-on-an-edge nation than lofty announcements. Although our agricultural output surpassed expectations this year, producing more of the crops did not automatically translate into retaining more of the international market.
There’s a swirling rumour that India seeks to reenter the export market by lowering the minimum price to boost shipments and regain its share against Pakistan. Our policymakers have been incredibly slow to realise the decreasing cotton production only a year after it recorded a bumper crop. Any initiative to boost food exports results in an inevitable round of relentless inflation in the local market.
We’ve repeatedly been down this path, thanks to the commercial greed of sugar barons. How then should the export industry boost its profile in a country, which, has criminally restricted itself to the scope of raw materials? Instead of looking towards value-added goods, this dyed-in-the-wool narrative has hurt the economy through missed opportunities and a high vulnerability to fluctuations in the international market.
The need to sharpen the competitive edge has, to date, been overlooked as government after government did little in terms of building the industrial base. Between negotiations with the Chinese friends for ease of entering their markets, and coming up with a plan to meet the European Union’s GSP-Plus conditions and incentives for indigenised production of raw materials, a lot can still be done before Islamabad pats its own back for a “grandiose” statement. *