Industry seeks govt support for growth
When Asad Umar quit the corporate sector to join politics in 2012, he told reporters that Pakistani businesses operated in an “Islamabad-controlled, rent-seeking economy.”
Two governments, three prime ministers and eight years later, there’s little ‘change’ in the state of the economy, although Umar is now the government’s point man for economic development in Islamabad.
In 2020, the industry continues to look towards Islamabad for patronage in the shape of concessions, subsidies and SROs. Some demand favours to enhance export earnings while others point out the need to placate foreign investors. Some demand subsidies for the sake of farmers, others seek handouts in the name of unskilled workers.
They love government intervention only when it suits them. Subsidised electricity and gas for industrialists are good, but price checks on medicines aren’t. Merchant energy markets are welcome, but so are capacity payments. Taxes are bad, but taxpayer-funded public-sector projects aren’t as long as they lift the profits of cement makers.
Speaking about his years in the private sector, Umar had said that instead of running his corporation, he’d end up spending most of his time badgering the powers that be in Islamabad. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, he and his fellow ministers should try to discourage the kind of rent-seeking that he set out to eliminate eight long years ago.
Shahid Sattar
Executive Director, Aptma