And the commerce minister
Fine time for the prime minister to bring up exports. Election is not too far away and campaign season will be in full swing before anybody knows it. And the PM needs to be seen talking about the economy; talking tough that is, even ridiculing the commerce minister for his eating habits. In all the shop talk about the economy nobody tells anybody, especially the finance minister, that exports have dropped even below the PPP era. For a government that lays the blame for almost all its problems at the previous government’s door, these numbers say a lot.
Yet it’s not as if Khurram Dastgir can just wave a magic wand and exports will turn. We suffer from lack of value-addition, making our export industry among the most primitive in the modern world. The commerce minister can do little to jack up numbers no matter how drastically he cuts his diet, and the PM knows it. At best he can initiate a long drawn process that will completely reorient and modernise manufacturing and production and subsequently exports. But since the ruling party has so far shown little appetite for long projects with frustrating time lags, they’re more likely to expect Khurram Dastgir to sign a few impressive trade agreements just in time for the election.
That is not to say, of course, that exports are not a very big problem. There’s no likelihood of tax revenue rationalising anytime soon, and exports remain paralysed, which is why we will never overcome our fixation with the deficit. Everybody, especially the finance ministry, knows only too well just what will happen to it once oil rebounds; and nothing remains too low for too long in the financial markets. The PML-N government will have come and gone yet the dilemma about the deficit would persist.
