And the PM’s tagline
Nawaz Sharif could have done his, and Pakistan’s, credibility a favour by not using the ‘most investor friendly climate in the world’ marketing line at the press conference with the German Chancellor in Berlin. Frau Merkel was quick to correct him – though indirectly – and rightly so. The Europeans have shown some appetite for business with Pakistan over the last few years; German is our fourth-biggest trading partner. But the country’s security situation serves as a natural deterrent. When no country is willing to send a sports team to Pakistan, building long-term financial arrangements and trade deals is near impossible, and understandably so.
Angela Merkel could not have been more subtle in her final analysis. Germany is eager to ‘intensify investments’ here, particularly in the energy sector, where we have the ideal ‘double coincidence of wants’. But the security situation, again, “sometimes acts as a deterrent”, she said. The German concern, therefore, is quite clear: make the country safer for foreigners, and much can be achieved in terms of trade and investment. Nawaz is likely to face similar concerns during the remainder of his marketing mission also, particularly in the UK.
Expanding trade and revenue, therefore, requires bringing the internal security situation up to scratch. There has been some movement of late, even if some steps have taken their sweet time coming; appointments of Nacta and Ncmc chiefs, for example. Different versions have been doing the rounds regarding such delays – from the government’s usual decision-making paralysis to the army still being uncomfortable with civilian ingress in the security paradigm. The leadership needs to create an environment where intelligence and security services work under a centralised system, so information can be shared and terrorist attacks thwarted. Nawaz will know better upon his return how closely security and trade are related in the modern environment. Rather than make rhetorical statements with little intrinsic value, the prime minister should identify obstacles to greater trade and revenue, and remove them one by one. Meetings like Berlin are instructive for Nawaz, at least in this regard.
