KARACHI: Chairman of the National Business Group Pakistan and President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum Mian Zahid Hussain has said Pakistan’s economic model has been corrupt since long.

Its entire focus is on raising living standards through imports, spending more than income and then rewarding the elite with loans and burdening the masses, he said.

Mian Zahid said that such a defective model is enough to make any rich country poor. He said that the economy of Pakistan depends on imports which are three times more than the exports.

The country’s period of growth has never lasted more than two or three years, followed by crisis because this growth is dependent on imports, which increase the wealth of the elite but do not trickle down to the poor masses, he added.

Since 1958, the 23 programmes of the IMF and the huge loans obtained from other sources are a clear indication of our negative policies.

Every time the economy grows by five percent or more, foreign exchange reserves fall by 25 to 50 percent as a result of paying for imports, which is proof that this growth is false.

Mian Zahid said that Ayub Khan’s era is considered to be the golden age in terms of economy, in which exports were only 7% of GDP, while loans from the IMF were taken three times.

He said that for the last 22 years, efforts are being made to forcibly run the failed government institutions by taking loans and the losses of the electricity and gas sectors are also being paid with loans.

The country is forced to take new loans at high interest rates to repay the old loans. The IMF’s conditions include 100 percent recovery of electricity and gas bills, settling the circular debt and a mini-budget to reduce deficit.

He noted that productivity of labor in our country is very low and no one has ever paid attention to increase it. Due to negative policies, Pakistan’s investment to GDP ratio is negligible compared to the South Asian average of 30%.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023