Or did it?
Fine time for the commerce ministry to announce that it ‘is preparing a 21-point plan to increase exports’, after three years of the present cycle are over and already all parties are almost in an early campaigning period of sorts. Now the prime minister will have one more point to make as he makes speeches up and down the country. Critics should be forgiven for associating the initiative with the election more than the latest exports graph. Talk of ‘adding value’ to the ‘export basket’ is as old as promises of ‘increased tax revenue’ and ‘control over load shedding’.
Should people believe the government is suddenly concerned because of one more year of bad numbers, or just because the expected wheat surplus is lost too, owing to mismanagement and incompetence? And it’s not just exports that should worry the PML-N government. All streams of revenue are strained. Taxes have never been anything to write home about; even if the ruling party technically made the headlines by increasing indirect taxation. And even remittances are suffering. Not just from the Gulf but elsewhere also. Of course, if you ask the finance minister he’ll say the economy is slow because the international economy is slow.
Those familiar with Pakistan’s economic machinery will smell another donor agreeing to a standby agreement, or something of the sort, not too far down the road. Campaigning season invariably involves expansionary fiscal policies. So there’s no helping the deficit as it goes further into red. Unless, of course, there is more aid; which is how we have survived for a long time. Meantime, we can expect the government to keep up its borrowing from the local market. Better exports would definitely have done the economy a world of good. But that’s not happening this year. Perhaps next time.
