Karim Mohammad Khan
A saying goes, “Money makes the world go round.” Before 1990s the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) were two powerful nations on earth. By military might, nuclear and conventional weaponry USSR was not less than the USA. However, later on USSR could not integrate and interconnect its whole states due to severe economic crisis and was shattered, battered and scattered in 1990, while its high tech nuclear arsenals were not rusted. Hence, it is the economy not the missiles and nuclear weapons that determines a country’s strength.
Currently Pakistan’s down ward trend economy is debated in talk-shows on various TV channels by economists and anchors. Many indicators reveal that the present state of our country’s economy is going down ward due to trade deficit with other countries which compels imbalance of payments and that is putting pressure on our foreign reserve. Our exports are declining and imports are increasing. Stock exchange is in a state of recession, internal, external debts and inflation rates are on the rise.
Some of the reasons of down ward trend of our economy are, malpractices and corruptions, importing luxurious goods; low industrial growth due to unhealthy conditions, lack of law and order situation, political uncertainty, lack of amenities to exporters, deficiency in tax and revenue structure and collection, scarcity in investment friendly environment and dearth of good governance. Further, competitiveness in the international market is yet another issue as our manufacturing goods and products are not competing even with Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi products owing to lack of quality with higher costs while customers prefer to buy cheap and quality goods.
To put the economy on right track, some steps need to be taken. Strict and across the board accountability is needed. Secondly, industrial and agricultural sector need to be given attention and maximum exports should be encouraged by providing incentives to industrialists, farmers, traders and merchants with immunity of tax and tariff.
In addition, human resource can play a critical role in the development of a nation’s strength. Luckily nearly sixty percent of our population consists of below 30 years of age and in order to exploit them first they need to be educated and developed technically, professionally and vocationally to enhance their work capacity. Trained and skilled work forces have more demands in the job market inland as well as abroad and they can contribute in GNP growth by sending remittances in the country.
Finally, foreign and domestic investors need to be facilitated and accommodated. Tax net particularly direct income taxes have to be expanded while tax evasion and misuse of electricity should be checked.
