Pakistan’s balance of payment is always disturbing to the economy of Pakistan. Imports are always higher than the exports Despite the fact that Pakistan has the potential of enhancing exports. Being an agrarian country, the country produces good quality of wheat, cotton, rice and sugar cane.
Rice and wheat are directly exported while the sugar cane and cotton are exported in the form of sugar and textile products. Mango and orange of Pakistan are of high quality which is greatly demanded by a lot of countries.
As far as industrial products are concerned, hereto Pakistani products are greatly demanded by many countries, for example; sports goods, leather and leather goods, cement, surgical and medical equipment, cutlery and, chemicals, etc.
Now the question arises, in spite of the availability and production of above-mentioned products, why the imports have always been higher than the exports? Here the passive and to some extent incapability of foreign houses of Pakistan is allegedly one of the most important reasons for the lessening exports.
Moreover, local government offices to help the exporters also seem to be allegedly non-cooperative. Undoubtedly, from vegetables to fruits and from cottage industry products to heavy industrial products, all are exportable. But even then, the balance of Pakistan always goes against Pakistan.
If we look from another angle, imports can easily be minimized by replacing them locally produced items, for example, a big part of imports is included in machinery. It goes without saying that Pakistani engineers and technicians can produce world-class machinery in their factories situated not only in Karachi and Lahore, rather in the cottage industry, situated in Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sialkot, and Wazirabad.
Pakistan has the capability of producing good quality of fertilizers. In different parts of the country, like the Hazara division, the experience of producing the TEA in big forms met success. Moreover, Pakistani imports include pharmaceutical, paper, milk products, dry fruits, etc.
This is also surprising why these products are allowed to import, in spite of the fact that these products can easily be produced in Pakistan. For instance; millions of tons of dry fruits go waste in northern areas like Sawat, Gilgit, Hunza, etc. even after 72 years, no strategy could be formulated to preserve the destroying of that area. Preserving and exporting of that dry fruit is a big source of earning foreign exchange.
Billions of foreign exchange is spent on importing tea from Bangladesh, Kenya and, Srilanka. Why the government of Pakistan does not appreciate the growers of tea in the country as this could be another source of saving a big amount of foreign exchange.
Exports of all the countries of the region like Bangladesh, India, Srilanka are higher than that of Pakistan. As a result, poverty in Pakistan is increasing along with decreasing GDP. It is required that parliaments should hold special sessions, focusing on enhancing the exports of Pakistan and discouraging exports.
Image source link
