Tola highlights importance of home-grown ‘Green Pakistan’

LAHORE: Leading economist Ashfaq Yousuf Tola has stressed on policymakers to choose between home-grown recipe of Green Pakistan and IMF policies for growth.

The home-grown Green Pakistan, he said, includes keeping policy rates closer to inflation rate; reduce debt servicing; and maintain the currency at its true value; stimulating growth; reduce fiscal deficit, and IMF policies focus on monetary tightening; import led growth, and tariff reduction.

To achieve sustainable growth, he said, we must prioritise policies that foster robust economic expansion. These policies include achieving an export surplus by focusing on our key cash crops: rice, wheat, and cotton.

Tola said Pakistan can reduce its cotton imports by enhancing cotton yields besides increasing rice exports.

Furthermore, said Tola, the FY26 economic strategy must prioritise on introducing targeted policy measures for industrial development. These include rationalising interest rates for industrial borrowers, electricity tariff reduction, abolishment of export financing scheme (EFS) on semi-finished and finished goods, implementing a balanced tariff structure on raw materials, duty free on intermediate goods and fostering export-oriented industrial clusters.

In parallel, he said, advancing the IT sector must be a strategic focus. It is imperative to address the growing trend of IT businesses operating via digital platforms under foreign identities, which leads to foreign exchange losses.

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