SOEs: the Chinese model

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed titled “SOEs: status quo” carried by the newspaper recently. The writer, Anjum Ibrahim, has presented a highly informed perspective on our white elephants.

It is a fact that the performance of three revenue-guzzling SOEs – Railways, PIA and Pakistan Steel – is a matter of greater debate. Our SOEs, by and large, are considered inefficient in operations. My question is why we do not adopt the Chinese model to overcome this challenge because China’s economy relies heavily on SOEs. In other words, China also owes its economic success to its SOEs. Hence the need for studying successive Chinese governments’ approach to SOEs.

Mehdi Hasan (Lahore)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022