Publication Date

3-7-2024

Description

First of all, let me thank Humanex for providing this opportunity to share my views on a very important subject. I don’t want to repeat what Tariq Ikram has said because he has covered a lot of things which I had proposed to speak to you about but because of the youngsters present here, young people who have not seen what Pakistan’s economic trajectory has been, I want to remind them that Pakistan inherited absolutely no industry unit in the territory which is Pakistan. Most of the industries were all in India. There was only one decrepit Dalmia Cement Factory here in Pakistan and some workshops in Mughalpura and others. But by the end of 1969-70, the World Bank in its Development policy report on Pakistan said, Pakistan’s manufactured exports today exceed those of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. This is 1969-70. So that is the glorious period where Pakistan was ahead of India, Bangladesh… Bangladesh was not formed at that time… Look where those Asian countries are today and where we are. I just wanted to remind you that we talk in abstract terms about potential but we should look at our past achievements and then ask a question, what happened. And that’s a very pertinent question. The first shock came when we nationalised our industries which were at an infancy stage. You know, industries don’t take off just like that. They take time to mature and scale up. Our educational institutions, financial institutions, banks, insurance were all nationalized making a drastic rupture and reversal of our industrialization path. Private sector which was the dynamic force behind the manufactured exports just drifted away and bureaucrats like me were given the charge of running the enterprises and we had no clue as to what the business is all about. Mr. Ziaul Haq didn’t do very much during his 11 year tenure to remedy the situation. . He didn’t reverse that process when he came to power because he had a different agenda. And it was Nawaz Sharif who embarked upon the path of liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation but he was there for two years only.

Notes

Address delivered at the Seminar on Ramping up Exports organized by Humanex at Karachi on 7th March 2024

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