Will, vision and capacity

PM Imran has talked much about providing ease of doing business, both for foreign and local businessmen

The ability of a country to earn foreign exchange holds the key to economic prosperity. And the legitimate ways to do so is by attracting foreign investment, increasing exports, and drawing remittances from the overseas workforce through legal channels. While there has been a constant rise in the volume of remittances from abroad in about last two decades — $2.3 billion in FY2002-03 to $19.94 in FY2017-18 and $21.8 billion in FY2018-19 — the other two areas are nothing much to write home about, despite the claims made by the successive governments of bringing about an export-led and investment-laden growth in the economy.

Now with the PTI at the helm, the situation is not much different. Export figures in FY2017-18 and FY2018-19 — $24.76 billion and $24.22 billion respectively — only show a slight fall, but the numbers concerning the FDI i.e. foreign direct investment are quite worrisome. At a meager $1.66 billion at the end of the FY2018-19, the total FDI volume has more than halved in comparison with the FY2017-18 figure of $3.47 billion. The PTI government’s performance on the two counts in the first month of the ongoing fiscal i.e. July of FY2019-20 in not encouraging either if compared with the figures in July of FY2018-19. The exports are only marginally higher at $2.2 billion in July of FY2019-20 from $2.0 in July of FY2018-19, and the FDI stands reduced to $73.4 million from $178.9 million in the two Julys.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has talked much about providing an ease of doing business — both for foreign and local businessmen — in order to attract foreign investment and encourage exports, but the figures at hand indicate his government’s inability to translate his words into actions. The figures also fly in the face of the expectations that the rise to power of an honest politician like Imran Khan would result in a windfall of dollars in the shape of foreign investment, as well as donations from the expat community. The situation calls for a robust strategy to materialise the PM’s will and vision.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2019.

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