New Delhi, Feb 6
The gap between how Pakistan actually lives and how it is officially governed is steadily eroding productivity, deepening inequality and weakening the foundations of growth, a new report has said, adding that the rhetoric around reaching $100 billion in exports by 2030 is closer to wishful thinking than credible strategy.
Moreover, latest package of incentives announced by the government may provide temporary relief, but on their own, they are unlikely to alter Pakistan's export trajectory in any meaningful way without deeper structural reform, argues Yousuf Nazar in The News International.
Projections place Pakistan's total exports of goods and services at roughly $40-41 billion in FY2025-26, with merchandise exports around $32 billion and services close to $8-9 billion.
"That baseline is being weakened further by recent performance: in the first seven months of FY2025-26, merchandise exports declined, with July 2025-January 2026 shipments falling to about $18.2 billion, nearly 7.0 per cent lower than a year earlier, widening the trade deficit by 28.2 per cent," said the report.
The report said that the $100 billion target remains aspirational rather than credible, in the absence of "radical transformation in productivity, urban infrastructure, industrial clustering and export competitiveness".
Economics is not moved by slogans. Without structural reform, this is less a strategy than a sandcastle, the report notes.
Notably, only 38-39 per cent of Pakistan's population as urban, based on administrative boundaries drawn decades ago. This framing obscures the scale of demographic change underway.
"A large and growing share of Pakistanis now live in dense, built-up settlements that function economically and socially like cities but remain officially labelled 'rural'. These areas absorb migrants, host non-farm employment and shape labour markets, yet fall outside municipal governance, urban investment and political attention," the report observes.
Economically, the contradiction is clear. Urban areas generate the bulk of output, services exports and tax revenue, yet receive inadequate investment relative to their population and economic weight. Environmental stress further compounds these challenges.
"Politically, however, Pakistan remains anchored in a rural imagination. Electoral incentives reward patronage over planning and land distribution over labour productivity," it says.
If Pakistan is serious about export-led growth, urban reform must move from the margins to the centre of economic policy, said the report.
- IANS
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