The high cost of doing business is a major impediment in Pakistan’s goal to become an upper-middle income economy, said ADB Country Director for Pakistan Xiaohong Yang.

“A robust private sector is critical to Pakistan’s goal of achieving upper-middle-income status, but the high cost of doing business limits its competitiveness,” said Yang in a statement to ADB.

The ADB Country Director added that the problem is compounded for private sector activities due to unreliable access to basic infrastructure, while access to finance remains limited for women entrepreneurs, small businesses, and other underserved segments.

She said that ADB will support the government in implementing tariff and tax reforms. The streamlined import tariff and tax procedures will help private businesses thrive and facilitate export diversification.

“ADB will deploy its sovereign and nonsovereign operations to support infrastructure, agribusiness, and finance sector investments. It will target reforms that boost competitiveness and private sector development, create jobs and drive market innovation. Recently issued local currency linked bonds will allow ADB nonsovereign operations to engage sectors like education, health and manufacturing,” said Yang.

She informed that the bank’s focus is on engaging public and private sectors to promote renewable energy, energy efficiency and build livable cities.

“We will continue to invest in rural infrastructure, strengthen agricultural value chains, improve connectivity, and increase access to finance by promoting lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises, women-led and women-driven businesses, and new business areas such as agribusiness, digitization, and tourism,” said ADB Country Director.