Lost in aggregate numbers

Uraan Pakistan, the national economic plan launched at the end of 2024, aims to raise exports to $60 billion a year by 2029. It expects provinces to finance a major share of their development budget. For the last few years, the Ministry of Commerce has emphasised that exports cannot be raised by the federal government alone and provinces must play their part. This view now appears to have been adopted at the highest level.

In September, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar called again for "a coordinated, whole-of-government approach" to exports. Such an approach implies that the Ministry of Commerce, other federal ministries, the State Bank of Pakistan, the Federal Board of Revenue and the provincial governments all work towards a common export target. Of these, the role of provinces is perhaps the most important and the least defined. The convergence of views within the government on the role of provinces must be duly appreciated.

However, the fundamental question that arises is how provinces can be asked to share responsibility for a national target when nobody knows how much each of them already exports. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) publishes exports by product and by destination. The SBP does the same for export receipts. Neither publishes export figures by province.

Customs records identify the port which cleared a shipment and the firm whose name is on the invoice. As such, any attempt to construct provincial numbers ends up tracking the port of exit or, at best, the registered address of the exporter. On this basis, a mango grown in Multan but shipped through Karachi appears as an export of Sindh. Marble quarried in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but cut and invoiced in Karachi is treated likewise. This implies that basic questions have no answer. It is not clear how much Punjab exported last year, or what is in the export basket of Balochistan. Without a baseline, there can be no provincial target. Without a target, nobody can be held accountable for missing it.

The problem, however, goes beyond accountability. The absence of provincial figures gives rise to at least four issues. The first relates to the incidence of trade costs, which falls unevenly on particular places. Since the closure of the Pak-Afghan border in October 2025, the loss, by one estimate about $890,000 a day, has fallen on transporters and perishable exporters in K-P and, to some extent, in Punjab. Similarly, 30-40% of mangoes and other perishables are lost for want of cold storage. The lost sales, put at over $200 million a year, belong to farmers in southern Punjab and Sindh. Consequently, nobody can tell how much of a province's trade these losses eat up or where removing them would yield the highest return.

The second issue is that national figures leave export policy blind to regional differences, even though export structures differ widely across provinces. Punjab's strengths lie in textiles, surgical instruments and pink salt. Sindh has chemicals, garments, fish and the port of Karachi. K-P has marble, furniture and gypsum, plus border trade through Torkham and Ghulam Khan. This trade amounted to almost $1.4 billion in 2024-25, prior to the border closure. Balochistan has minerals, dates, livestock and fish. Federal policy, however, treats Faisalabad and Gwadar alike.

The third issue relates to competitiveness. A country that cannot see where its exports originate cannot tell which industrial clusters are gaining and which are losing ground. Nor can it see where logistics costs bite hardest. A furniture maker in Peshawar must transport goods over 1,000 km to reach Karachi; a garment maker in Korangi need not. Policy which ignores this difference will continue to favour exporters already located near the port.

The final issue relates to traceability. From the end of 2026, the deforestation regulation of the European Union will require leather and wood to be traced to the land where the cattle were raised or the trees grown. The EU forced-labour regulation, which applies from December 2027, permits the flagging of risky products and regions. Exporters to Pakistan's most important GSP+ market will, therefore, have to demonstrate exactly where their goods were made.

India, by contrast, publishes exports by the state of origin and NITI Aayog ranks states on export preparedness. In Pakistan, nobody keeps score. There are two reasonable grounds for caution. Trade policy is a federal subject and devolving it could fragment it. Also, provincial competition could degenerate into a subsidy race. However, publishing data is not the same as devolving trade policy. Following the 18th Amendment, the provinces control much of what determines export costs. Provincial accounts would simply enable them to see the results of their own choice. Competition over a public scorecard is, in fact, healthier than competition over handouts.

A whole-of-government approach needs a whole-of-government scoreboard. Until exports are counted where they are made, the target of $60 billion will remain a federal headline rather than a provincial commitment. Data alone will not, however, be sufficient. Provinces also need an incentive to act and the capacity to do so. Three steps are recommended.

First, provincial export figures must be published. Customs records of the FBR, SBP payments data and the exporters' registry should be linked to the origin of goods. Much of the required data already exists in customs declarations, sales tax registrations and factory addresses. What is missing is the effort to integrate it.

Second, each province should be given an export target for at least five priority sectors. These should combine established sectors with those that could diversify the export basket. Punjab, for example, might pair surgical goods, sports goods and rice with auto parts and pharmaceuticals. Each target must have a budget attached, financed mainly from provincial development budgets, with matching funds from the federal government. The funds should be used for testing laboratories, cold storage and certification rather than tax concessions.

Third, a trade desk should be set up in each provincial Board of Investment. It would gather market intelligence for the province's export basket and share it with Pakistan's trade missions abroad. A desk in Quetta tracking Chinese demand for dates is likely to pick up signals that a federal ministry can easily miss. The desk should also help small firms meet the standards of buyers. In addition, it must work with the Intellectual Property Organisation of Pakistan to register and defend the geographical indications of a province. Much of Khewra's pink salt, for instance, is sold abroad as generic "Himalayan" salt.

Pakistan's exporters already bear the cost of the country's blind spots, at the border, at the port and on the factory floor. A whole-of-government approach to exports must begin by counting what they make and where they make it.

The writer is Head of Policy (Trade, Investment and Industrial Cooperation) at the Centre of Excellence for CPEC, PIDE