TEXT: The economy of Pakistan remained volatile due to lack of a long-term sustainable vision, foresight and the will to carry out structural reforms. This ultimately resulted in gradual de-industrialization and an anti-export bias, which contributed to creation of massive current account deficits over the years.

From the very beginning, this Government's focus has been on promoting export-led 'Make in Pakistan'. In the last two years, we have been able to move towards this objective through a number of structural reforms, like rationalization of tariffs on raw materials for the industry, GSP+, product and geographical diversification and strengthening of the institutional mechanisms through the National Tariff Policy Board to support the businessmen. During this course, we faced unprecedented challenges on many fronts, including the recent Covid-19 pandemic, but we have been able to successfully overcome these hurdles with hard work and strong support from the business community.

There is still a long way to go in this journey that began a couple of years ago. However, we must keep our focus on the ultimate goal of bringing in our export culture, for goods and services, and putting in place necessary mechanisms to sustain development for many years to come.

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Copyright Business Recorder, 2020