'Made In Pakistan' Move To Prove Instrumental In Squeezing Imports

ISLAMABAD, Jun 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jun, 2019 ) :An APP Feature By Taj Nabi Khan Very often, if not always, Pakistani citizens are easily attracted towards foreign commodities and get convinced to buy the products due to their brands, logos, quality and companies. It is said that a country can never get itself free of manipulative outsiders unless it raises its own revenue from domestic resources.

The move of marketing "Made in Pakistan" products in the country and abroad is the only way forward for dealing with the current trade deficit: decreasing exports and increasing imports.

The paradigm shift in national policy from aid-to-trade is no doubt a forward step for economic growth for almost all of developing countries around the globe. However, historically, for Pakistan, instead of producing worthwhile products through knowledge-based economy, the focus has always remained on imports. Thus the country is prone to pursue dependency on the produce of others instead of creating a demand in the international markets for its own products.

On one hand, the country is being faced with a number of challenges which have had a direct impact on economic development and growth. On the other, the country's exports are shrinking as compared to imports, which have expanded the trade deficit, thus debts are mounting up. Therefore, Pakistan needs to rethink and reconfigure the trading patterns for focusing on self-sufficiency.

Without ensuring a sufficiently widespread participation of key sectors of the economy, any upturn will remain unconvincing as 50pc to 60pc of Pakistan's population relies on farm incomes. Thus tackling Pakistan's agriculture-related challenge is as fundamental as other vital issues for the economy. Unfortunately, over the years, during the last several governments, the macro choices, agricultural policies at the Federal and provincial levels remain hostage to a lack of attention by members of the ruling structure.

Economist and Corporate Finance Specialist Syed Ali Imran, said in his op-ed that that the incumbent government is trying to bring down the Current Account Deficit (CAD) and Trade Deficit by a number of means. He said, "Figures show that under the PTI regime, Pakistan has paid off the biggest amount related to debt servicing ever in the history of this country." Talking to this scribe, Islamabad based Journalist dealing with economy, Shams Abbasi said that the government was determined to bring investor-friendly reforms in 'Ease of Doing Business' and evolve agriculture and industrial policies for creating 'Industrial Base' in the country.

The government was in the right direction for launching the move of 'Made in Pakistan' to decrease reliance on the foreign products for domestic consumers, he added.

The Economist Ali Imran said that the speed of taking further loans was also very fast due to the fact that despite all measures neither imports were considerably going down nor exports were increasing in line with the magnitude of rupee devaluation. Nonetheless, he suggested that there was a way to deal with the economic condition where economy seemed trapped and that was to change the consumer preferences towards import substitution together with looking other horizons and products for exports.

Abbasi said the export-led economy needed internal industrial growth, value addition, agro-industry and branding of quality Pakistani products in the international markets. He said, "Farmers are rich the world over for producing organic food in 21st century due to access to modern farming tools, techniques and international markets." However, the government needs to facilitate the exporters for branding of the local produce as per the Global Indication Laws (GIL) and Intellectual Property Rights Laws (IPRL), he added.

Ali Imran said that the new government has successfully taken right economic measures to control the present situation but there were certain parameters which needed to be addressed, and by addressing these, Pakistan could deal with this economic emergency. Import substitution was one of the parameters which ccould control foreign exchange outflow that otherwise was happening from import based consumption pattern in Pakistan, he added.

The Finance Specialist said that there were two sides of import based consumption: One was imported items to be consumed by locals with no value addition like imported cars, cosmetics etc whereas the second one worked as a raw material which after a little value addition become available to general public like home appliances, assembly lines etc. In order to deal with this situation, he said, the government needed to promote made in Pakistan consumer pattern. Quality control of local products and raw material was the only way to shift consumer preference towards local goods, he added.

In this regard, Pakistan embassies working in different parts of the world can play a vital role to promote Pakistani products. Thus the collective efforts by business people and government servants with shared sense of responsibility may lead to explore more horizons for 'Made in Pakistan' products in the international markets.