Faisalabad:Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal
on Thursday said that Pakistan must push its exports beyond $100 billion by 2035 to meet
its long-term economic ambitions.
He was addressing the ‘Business Excellence Award Ceremony for SMEs and Top Exporters of Faisalabad’ at Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) on the completion of FCCI’s 50 years of Excellence.
He said that Pakistan could no longer afford to rely on conventional economic practices and needed to move with ‘extraordinary speed’ to unlock its full economic potential.
He said that the government and business community would have to work together to convince international buyers that Pakistan was a reliable supplier, capable of maintaining uninterrupted production, fulfilling orders on time and ensuring smooth movement of goods from factories to ports and onward to global markets.
He said that Pakistan had repeatedly faced trade deficits, foreign exchange pressures and debt-related challenges because economic growth in the past had largely been driven by consumption and imports rather than sustainable production and exports.
Referring to the period when the country recorded around six percent economic growth, he said that such growth could not be considered sustainable when it was accompanied by a sharp rise in imports and a trade deficit approaching $50 billion. The resulting pressure on foreign exchange reserves eventually contributed to pressure on the value of the rupee, he added.
He said that the government had spent the last two years working to prevent further economic deterioration and establish a foundation for stability. The next challenge was to transform this stability into rapid, sustainable and export-led growth, he added.
He said that increasing exports by merely one or two billion dollars annually would not be enough to meet Pakistan’s future external financing requirements. Instead, the country needed a substantial and sustained expansion in export earnings to reduce its dependence on continuous borrowing for meeting external financial needs, he added.
He said that the government had set a target of transforming Pakistan into a $1 trillion economy by 2035 for which a major expansion in exports was indispensable.
He said that economies could broadly pursue growth through consumption or production but Pakistan now needed to firmly adopt a production and export oriented model capable of generating sustainable foreign exchange.
‘Imports may temporarily increase the size of an economy but the resulting trade deficit ultimately undermines economic stability if exports do not grow alongside them’, he added.
He said that the government’s ‘Uraan Pakistan’ program was part of a broader vision to transform Pakistan into an export-oriented economy by promoting production, quality, innovation, branding and access to international markets.
He said that Pakistan also needed to convert the positive international perception generated by its recent diplomatic and political engagement into tangible economic and commercial gains.
‘The government and private sector have a joint responsibility to convert Pakistan’s improving global image into economic benefits’, he said, urging the business community to make quality, branding, value addition and reliable supply central to their export strategy.
He particularly highlighted reliability of supply as an increasingly important requirement in international trade and said that price and quality alone were no longer sufficient to secure long-term business from global buyers.
He explained that an international buyer needed assurance that an order would be produced on schedule, transported to the port and delivered without unnecessary disruption. If such confidence was missing, the buyer would hesitate to treat Pakistan as a long-term supplier, he added.
Citing an interaction with a US importer, the federal minister said that the businessman had explained that he was not merely selling garments but ‘reliable supply’, stressing that the concept carried an important lesson for Pakistan’s export strategy.
He said that Pakistan needed to project an image of modern industries operating continuously, producing quality goods and fulfilling export orders on time instead of images of blocked roads, stranded containers and disruptions to industrial activity.
He urged the business community to discourage activities that disrupted factories, transportation, industrial production or export supply chains.
He said that Pakistan’s international reputation as an export destination would strengthen when foreign buyers associated the country with quality, timely delivery and consistency.
He also underlined the importance of policy continuity and said that no country had achieved sustainable development within only a few years.
He said that Pakistan had introduced several development plans and visions in the past but lack of continuity prevented them from producing their intended results.
Drawing an analogy with agriculture, he said that possession of the best seed alone did not guarantee a good harvest. Appropriate weather, fertile land, adequate water, a supportive agricultural environment and protection of crops from disruption were also necessary.
Similarly, formulating good economic policies was not enough rather Pakistan also needed to create an enabling environment in which those policies could continue long enough to deliver results, he added.
The minister said that policy continuity did not mean resisting change but ensuring that reforms continued while adapting to changing global circumstances.
He stressed the need for a new national economic compact involving the government, industry, business community and other stakeholders to fully exploit Pakistan’s economic potential.
Under ‘Uraan Pakistan’, the government was focusing on exports, production, quality, innovation, branding and access to international markets as key pillars of economic transformation, he added.
He said that Pakistan would have to take exports beyond $100 billion by 2035 if it was to achieve the target of becoming a $1 trillion economy.
He said that the government was also working to identify export potential at the district level and connect locally produced goods with international markets.
Every city and district of Pakistan has products and sectors that can be transformed into export-oriented industries through improved quality, value addition, modern technology, packaging, branding and internationally recognized certification, he added.
He said that the government needed to provide the private sector with an enabling environment in which unnecessary hurdles to investment, production and exports were minimized.
He urged the exporters to move beyond traditional products and focus on new products, high-value-added goods and modern services according to changing demand in international markets.
He said meaningful economic transformation could not be achieved without a strong partnership
between the government and private sector.
The government’s role is not to run businesses but to create an environment in which the private sector can lead investment, production, employment generation and exports, he added.
He called upon the business community to treat Pakistan’s industrial and export interests as a national priority and discourage activities that could adversely affect production, investment or export supply chains.
He said that Pakistan possessed human resources, industrial capacity, agricultural production, strategic geographical location and entrepreneurial potential but these assets could only translate into economic gains through sustained and extraordinary national efforts.
He said that the country now had to choose between continuing with conventional approaches and adopting an extraordinary pace of economic transformation.
The export growth, policy continuity, industrial expansion, globally competitive products, modern technology and coordinated government-private sector action were imperative for sustainable economic development, he added.
He also assured the business community that he would speak to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to initiate the construction of an expo center in Faisalabad during the upcoming fiscal year if they increased exports by 20 percent.
Earlier, FCCI President Farooq Yousaf Sheikh delivered the welcome address and presented FCCI memento to Federal Minister.
The federal minister also distributed Business Excellence Awards among top exporters and inaugurated the Podcast Room and Passport Desk at Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.