HYDERABAD: Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that Pakistan’s exports could touch only $30bn due to a lack of interest shown by successive governments and its missions abroad.

He was addressing members of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry in their office on Monday evening.

He said successive governments could take exports to just $30bn over the last 75 years in spite of the presence of Pakistan’s missions in 115 countries.

He added that this system badly needed structural changes. “The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not the name of a road network; Pakistan needs industrialization,” he added.

The former PM said that the FBR system also needed reforms, and observed that banks were not offering loans to youths despite such an employment scheme for them being in place.

HCCI leaders discuss issues with Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Miftah Ismail

He agreed with HCCI president Adeel Siddiqui’s concern over business community’s unresolved issues, and said that it must be facilitated. He said Bangladesh and UAE were providing incentives to their business communities and this helped these countries increase their exports.

Mr Abbasi also stressed that the CNG industry should be revived as it had potential to generate employment opportunities.

He noted with concern that the SSGC could not import a single container of LNG.

He said that a solution to every problem was there.

Former finance minister Miftah Ismail said that they [he and Mr Abbasi] were promoting a new concept of Pakistan. He said economic conditions in the country were currently in a difficult phase. Pakistan’s exports were 16pc of the GDP with $30bn and this percentage now stood at 9pc. He regretted that skill redevelopment, industrial production and education were not given due attention.

He believed that energy production could increase from 12,000MW to 25,000MW but steps could not be taken in this direction and towards increasing industrial production and exports.

He said that officials were visiting different friendly countries with a begging bowl but nobody was ready to help. He, however, expressed his optimism about an IMF deal which, he said, might finally be achieved despite problems. He hoped that Pakistan would be out of the quagmire.

HCCI president Adeel Siddiqui said Mr Abbasi knew about the problems being faced by the country, recalling that he had signed an LNG deal with Qatar but a follow-up could not be seen as yet.

Mr Siddiqui said Hyderabad used to be a textile hub. He said motorbike assembly and pulses industries were working in this city. He said industrial sector faced serious issues. “Pakistan is spending $1bn on import of pulses although the commodity is produced in Sindh,” he said, and regretted that government was not supporting growers and traders of pulses. Instead, it was spending a huge amount of foreign exchange on the import of one million tonnes of pulses, he said.

He said there were hurdles in promotion of trade and industry due to non-technical BoDs of various utilities and corporations which translated in economic losses. He said Hyderabad’s traders contributed Rs50bn per annum in taxes to the national exchequer and Rs5bn to the provincial kitty.

HCCI patron Iqbal Baig said that businessmen had invested trillions of rupees and provided jobs to millions but due to gas shortage, the CNG industry was faced with serious issues. He said the people who had sold their lands to invest in the CNG industry had now gone bankrupt. Government must take steps to revive the CNG industry, he stressed.

HCCI vice president Najmuddin Qureshi thanked the visiting guests and said joint efforts were needed to face these challenges.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2023