We have amazing fruits but fruits are not equivalent to a washing machine
KARACHI: Look down at your new iPhone 7. Where did you get it from? Probably a family friend or a relative who brought it over from Dubai or New York. It all seems pretty harmless. Someone brings over something from their annual trip overseas and sells it to you at the same price. The problem here is, the government doesn’t get anything out of it — namely, taxes. Taxes that should ideally build better roads, curb water shortages and electricity outages.
There is no reason for you to get happy about this. Businesses are out to get you. Recently, the president of the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged the government to curb smuggling as it is damaging the economy. If this gentleman gets his way, your dreams could be shattered like Mawra Hocane’s Bollywood career. All your plans of having a ‘branded’ kitchen and a state-of-the-art sound system in your living room have just vanished into thin air.
One could argue that not flooding the markets with ‘smuggled’ goods is better for the Pakistani economy. But honestly, our economy will only get better once our markets actually export goods or in other words, make their own goods. Pakistan only produces cotton, wheat, sports goods and the basic agricultural goods that every other country already has. Yes, we have amazing fruits but fruits are not equivalent to a washing machine.
The point here is, if the businessmen want to stop smuggling shouldn’t they be showing us results?
Zahra Mukhi
Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2016.
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