A well-deserved policy win

Government can rightly celebrate an achievement that will allow Pakistan to further expand trade with European Union.

It was one of the least known positive aspects of the previous PPP administration, but the government’s decision to impose a moratorium on the death penalty appears to have not gone unnoticed in Brussels. The civilian part of Pakistan’s government, at least, appears to have won just enough praise for its human rights record that the European Union has decided to offer the country the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status, a designation that will offer Pakistani exporters expanded access to European markets. The new status is welcome on multiple fronts. It is expected to result in improved trade flows and thus support the creation of up to one million new jobs. And, perhaps more importantly, it is a reflection of the progress that the country has made in moving from authoritarianism to democracy.

That the GSP Plus status took nearly a decade and a half to achieve, and that it could easily have been attained much earlier, is a subject for another day. For now, the government can rightly celebrate an achievement that will allow Pakistan to further expand trade with the European Union, already the nation’s largest trade partner and one with which we currently run a large trade surplus. But while this success is an important milestone, the challenge for the Nawaz Administration now will be to maintain momentum, a task that will not be easy. The prime minister’s trip abroad was supposed to have heralded a new foreign policy focus on trade and investment, but instead was hijacked by conversations about drones and terrorism. Having a clear terrorism policy should help move Pakistan’s foreign policy agenda in the right direction. Prime Minister Sharif has frequently talked about trying to make Pakistan into one of the most dynamic economies in Asia. We applaud his effort to try to make that happen, but we wish he would also realise that his reticence to confront the most regressive elements of the political spectrum is a large part of what is holding back the country from achieving that goal. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2013.

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