RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The economy of Pakistan is very near to touch the danger crisis point and we have taken a loan of $2 billion from China to maintain our reserves, renowned economist Dr Kaiser Bengali expressed these views.

Dr Bengali was speaking on a dialogue programme titled ‘Our Vision of Pakistan: Impediments to Development’ organised by Ziauddin University here at versity’s auditorium on Wednesday. “Any economy is required to maintain foreign exchange reserves equal to at least 3 months of imports, and if it goes below that, it means the economy is at crisis point and unfortunately, Pakistan is very near to this danger,” Dr Kiser Bengali said. He said taking loan to maintain reserves shows that in future it would be very difficult for us to get loans from IMF and We would have to accept their hard economical and political conditions.

He pointed out that currently Pakistani’s economy is facing two gap crises which is the biggest loss for our economy. We have more than US$ 100 billion foreign debt and this occurred because of dollar and rupee gap. In 1995 on every $100 there was a gap of Rs 125 and at present, we have import of 23 billion dollars and export is around 60 billion dollars.

Speaking to the audience, Dr. Kaiser Bengali said in 2013 our total exports were about 3.5 percent, and in 2016 it decreased to only 12.2 percent. And the average percentage of our exports from year 2013 to 2016 is 11.7 percent. We observed a lot of decrease in exports during the year 2015 and 2016 which means our own industries are no more in working conditions. Whereas, our imports in 2013 were about 0.1 percent, and in 2016 it increased to 2.5 percent, and the average percentage from 2013 to 2016 is 2.4 percent.

“Our GST rate is 7 percent it should be only 5 percent. Our Income deficit is 70 percent higher than services deficit…” he further said. Ziauddin University chancellor Dr Asim Hussain expressed shock on annual imports of more than ten billion dollar food items and over $2 billion import of cosmetics raised a question if we are one nation why wasting such a huge amount on lavish living and increasing the debts through trade deficit every year.

In his address Dr Asim Hussain advised that we should take serious notice of the increasing foreign influence on our country and the nation as a whole. He expressed his concern over the national failure in change of curricular in our educational institutions since last seven decades.

National and international relations expert Dr Huma Baqai said we are afraid of asking right questions. Culture of questioning is almost ended. We do not have any right to ask a question about armed forces and terrorist because we have fear in our hearts that if we ask, we will be called a perfidious or disloyal to our country. This shows our state is not strong enough to provide safety and security to common public. “When you lose economic sovereignty, you lose all sovereignties it means your economy is on mortgage and unluckily we are at that stage…” said Dr Baqai.

Earlier, Ziauddin University vice chancellor Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui welcomed all the panellists and appreciated the enormous number of young students for taking part in the programme. He also advised the students to always keep in mind that they all are future of Pakistan.