ON the economic front, good news continues to pour in. In his tweet on Monday, Prime Minister Imran Khan said the economy is on the right track since country’s current account balance – the difference between government’s foreign income and expenditure – recorded a surplus $424million in July.
It really goes to the credit of present government of drastically bringing down the current account deficit from twenty billion dollars to three billion dollars last year. Though for the common man it holds no significance but it must be understood that the current account balance is a key indicator of an economy’s fundamentals. Fluctuations in this variable are deeply intertwined and convey information about the actions and expectations of all economic agents in an open economy. Definitely, improvement in the receipt of workers’ remittances which remained record high of 2.7 billion dollars in the month of July as well as decline in trade deficit helped in turning the current account balance into a surplus from deficit. This indeed is not an ordinary thing as this has been achieved when the economy is still coming out of the shocks of Covid-19. In our view, the government is treading the right path of taking the economy towards export- led growth. Increasing tax collection and the exports is the only way the country can achieve self-reliance and address most of its economic woes. Thus, the focus must remain on bringing much needed reforms in the FBR in order to bring more people into the tax net as well as bringing the value addition in exports. We are confident that the good news on the economic front will also encourage foreign investors to invest in Pakistan. Ten leading Chinese companies held a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday which are undertaking business ventures in critical sectors, including energy, communication, agriculture, science and technology, financial sector and industry. We need to extend full facilitation to the Chinese as well as investors from other countries to take the country on the path of rapid industrialization.
