Talking trade

The foreign policy of Pakistan is littered with lofty promises of future cooperation that never materialise.

There is an old British adage that politicians often confuse activity for achievement. That may well turn out to be true in the case of the free trade agreement that Pakistan has pledged to sign with Thailand five years from now. The foreign policy of Pakistan is littered with such lofty promises of future cooperation that never materialise. We can think of an example from the same region: Pakistan and Indonesia have been talking about a free trade agreement since at least 2007 and have not yet managed to sign one.

At a time when the whole world has properly understood that the global system of power and alliances is played out primarily in the realm of economics, our strategists seem content to confine trade policy to the bureaucrats in the commerce ministry, rather than seizing it as an instrument of statecraft.

Promising to sign a free trade agreement with the country’s 33^rd largest trading partner five years from now does not count as a robust trade policy. No, what is needed from Islamabad is more urgency in signing trade agreements with economies that matter most to Pakistani businesses.

We do not even suggest starting with India. Let us start with something basic like the European Union (EU). The EU is Pakistan’s largest trading partner — one with which we run a large trade surplus — and would be more than happy to sign an agreement that would allow Pakistan to sell even more goods in their markets, provided we pass a few laws improving, for example, human rights and provide better legal protections to our own fellow citizens. Yet, rather than do what is very clearly in our economic interest, we dither and try to blame it all on Brussels.

Trade is not just an addendum on a press release to be issued whenever a foreign dignitary comes visiting. It should be the centrepiece of the agenda of every meeting undertaken by Pakistani diplomats around the world. The empty rhetoric may impress the civil servants, who write the joint statements, but nobody else.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2013.

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