ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has suffered immensely over the past 16 years owing to its engagement in the war on terrorism with overall economic losses accumulating to US$ 123.13 billion besides a huge human toll.
Unveiling the Economic Survey 2016-17, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that around 25,000 soldiers have lost their lives in the war on terror. Official figures put the total death toll since the year 2001 at around 62000 lives.
The survey suggests that despite the conflict and continuing instability in Afghanistan that has been an impediment to regional peace and development, Pakistan has achieved a significant improvement in the country’s overall security landscape in the recent years. This has been accomplished largely due to successful counter-terrorism efforts of the government under the framework of the comprehensive National Action Plan, backed by an extensive and highly effective counterterrorism Operation Zarb-e-Azb by the armed forces, and actions by other security and law enforcement agencies and intelligence-based operations across the country.
After successful completion of Zarb-e-Azb, a country-wide operation Radd-ul-Fassad has been launched for eliminating any residual or latent threats. Due to the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan has faced the most serious consequences– from political to security, socio-economic and environmental–over the decades. From hosting millions of refugees to being a major victim of terrorism, the cumulative impact has been enormous, with the adverse overall growth rate in all major sectors of the economy.
Normal economic and trading activities were disrupted, resulting in higher costs of doing business, including the cost of insurance and significant delays in meeting the export orders around the globe. As a result, Pakistani products gradually lost their market share to their competitors.
In addition to economic losses, cross-border terrorism in Pakistan has inflicted untold human suffering resulting from indiscriminate and brutal terrorist attacks against the civilian population.
In this backdrop, success in counter-terrorism operations has played a critical role in creating conducive economic environment whose results have now started appearing in terms of growth across different segments of the economy.
As a result of these efforts, the total losses incurred due to incidents of terrorism are declining. The direct and indirect cost incurred has been gradually declining.
During 2015-16, losses have declined by 29.8 per cent while during July-March 2016-17, the deficit declined by 40.2 per cent which clearly reflects the effectiveness of the government’s efforts to eliminate terrorism and extremism from the country.
