Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has constituted eight specialised working groups comprising top business leaders, technical experts and government officials to formulate concrete policy recommendations across critical economic sectors.
This initiative is aimed at revitalising Pakistan’s economy. The Prime Minister’s Office on Saturday announced that eight working groups were constituted following a high-level meeting with businesspersons on October 23.
The present PML(N) government is considered business friendly and both Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb remain in touch with members of business community to devise and fine tune policies. This is understandable as no policy can succeed until and unless major stakeholders are taken on board and constitution of eight working groups is a step towards this direction.
The most important is the Customs, Trade, Tariffs and Dumping Working Group, which has been tasked with addressing bottlenecks that are hampering Pakistan’s export competitiveness and trade facilitation. This group represents crux of government’s reform agenda, as customs and tariff policies have been widely recognised as single most significant impediment to Pakistan’s ability to compete in global markets. Experts point out that Pakistan’s export competitiveness is hindered by factors like low productivity, high energy costs and a lack of value-addition in key sectors like textiles. While traditional sectors like textiles, cotton and rice have been export mainstays, their competitiveness is declining, and there is a need for diversification and a shift towards more skill and technology-intensive products.
Another bottleneck in the way of industrialisation and exports is sharp contradictions in government policies caused by political expediencies and pressure by multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is these contradictions that push the cost of doing business up and discourage ‘Make in Pakistan’ besides playing havoc with prospects of technological boosts. The decision to set up working groups on important aspects of the economy is a welcome development but real issue remains implementation of the recommendations by scores of such entities.
