And the rupee
Dar sb has always struggled with the rupee-dollar parity. For some reason, despite our trend of less exports and more imports, he likes to keep the rupee robust, even when those around us – our trading partners – are weakening their currencies. There was a time, not too long ago, when he even got the Saudis to park a billion (dollars) from their reserves in our central bank; nudging the rupee just below one hundred to the dollar and embarrassing Sh Rashid in the House.
But when our trading partners have weaker currencies than ours, we automatically buy more from then, stretching our trade deficit even further. Headlines pointing out the ‘unprecedented rise’ in the deficit have already started doing the rounds; it now stands at $22.38 billion for the first nine months of the fiscal. Yet nobody, especially in government, is asking Dar sb just what became of the GSP-plus export bonanza, or why the lower import bill due to cheap oil did not address the deficit at all?
Even worse, nobody has lifted a finger to reorient the export mix; make it more value added, etc. This government, just like the PPP government, will end its tenure without impacting the revenue dilemma at all. There has been no progress on improving tax generation. And, as is obvious, there’s been practically nothing on exports. From the looks of things, therefore, we’ll just continue to borrow more, at least for the foreseeable future.