SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s former president Iftikhar Ali Malik has said that despite challenges and skepticism, the government has achieved the ambitious path of necessary fiscal consolidation over the past three consecutive years, even surpassing its primary surplus targets.
Talking to reporters here Sunday, he said, Pakistan has vast potential for strong and sustainable results-oriented engagement with the US, China and Middle East for investment in innovation, stressing that Pakistan needs to be a significant player in the modern global economy instead of operating on its margins.
Malik added, “We have to transform Pakistan from short-lived stabilisation efforts to a durable, sustainable and outward-looking growth model.” He asserted that private sector must align their workforce development with changing market needs, and it should also pursue partnerships and joint ventures abroad, technology transfer, and knowledge exchange to improve productivity and competitiveness at home.
“We cannot achieve long-term sustainable economic growth if our private sector continues to look only at short-term profit margins at the cost of long-term stagnation and global irrelevance,” he remarked. He said SBP and the government must continue to pursue structural reforms, strengthen fiscal and external buffers to improve resilience, and provide stability for our businesses to thrive.
Iftikhar Ali Malik said, addressing structural issues through long-term reforms is imperative while businesses must shift their focus from looking inward to outward and compete on the global stage by producing goods which meet global demand and quality benchmarks. This will only happen if a company integrates into global value chains, modernise their production processes, and stop relying on substitutes for genuine competitiveness.