Pakistan GDP Driven By Consumption, Not Exports and Investments

[Riaz Haq]

Gross domestic product (GDP) is calculated by adding up public and private consumption, investments and exports. Some of the major world economies, most notably Germany and China, are led by exports, while others, such as United States, United Kingdom, India and Pakistan, are primarily domestic consumption driven.

With almost 80% of its GDP from consumption, Pakistan has particularly heavy reliance on domestic public and private spending for its economic health. This is much higher than the US consumption accounting for over 70% of its economy, and India's 60%.

As Pakistan's GDP has more than doubled over the last decade, its FDI has increased dramatically and its exports have grown at 16% CAGR till 2007, the consumption component has continued to be stubbornly high at about 80%, with about 20% of it coming from investments and exports. By contrast, India's consumption component has declined from 80% to 60% with its investment and export components rising to more than 30% during the same period.

While the rest of the developed economies stagnate, the German formula seems to be working well, with exports driving the nation’s strong recovery. The German economy grew 2.2 percent in the second quarter from the first, yielding an annualized growth rate of about 9 percent that puts it on a footing with emerging markets like China and India.

In spite of the fact that about 80% of Pakistan's GDP depends on domestic consumption, the nation has been highly vulnerable to external shocks related to the need for imports, particularly the oil price volatility. Energy accounts for about a third of Pakistan's imports, and as the speculators drove oil prices to over $150 a barrel in 2008, the nation found itself unable to pay for imports, and sought bailout by the International Monetary Fund in 2008.

While the country was moving rapidly towards the IMF, former economic adviser Prof. Ashfaque Hasan Khan recalls that Pakistan's ministry of finance had prepared the plan to bring $4 billion by June 30, 2008 through four transactions. A kick-off meeting was scheduled on April 23, 2008 at the ministry to give a final touch to the various roadshows. These transactions were canceled on April 20, 2008. Who ordered the cancellation of $4 billion transaction? This cancellation prompted the latest balance of payment crisis and the rest became history.

Since the major missteps by the Zardari government in 2008, the economic crisis has worsened as the investors have pulled out and business confidence plummeted amidst serious security concerns raised by the Taliban insurgency in the country. It has also hurt Pakistan's exports. The recent devastating floods have added to the already serious economic woes. The only positive news has been the rising remittances by overseas Pakistanis which increased to nearly $9 billion last year.



Several East Asian and South East Asian nations faced a similar financial crisis in 1997 which required IMF bailout. Since the 1997 crisis, most of these Asian nations have significantly expanded their exports and built up large dollar reserves to deal with external shocks effectively. In addition, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has banded together with China, South Korea, and Japan to form the "ASEAN Plus Three" financial grouping. This arrangement is designed to enable member countries to swap reserves if speculators again target their currencies.

In addition to reviving the national economy from its current slump, the biggest long-term challenge for Pakistan's economic leadership is to improve the nation's ability to deal with external and internal shocks. This will require learning from the experience of India or other Asian economies in building sufficient internal revenue base for public expenditure, attracting greater foreign investment, expanding and diversifying exports and strengthening hard currency reserves. Inability to deal with these challenges will doom Pakistan to perpetual dependence on IMF and consequent loss of sovereignty to it.

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[Riaz Haq]

Here's an Express Tribune report about Pakistan's IT export potential:

KARACHI: Pakistan could play host to an extreme growth spurt in the information technology industry in the next 10 years, according to a study quoted by IBM’s Country General Manager Hamayun Bashir.

Speaking at a ceremony held to celebrate a century of IBM’s existence on Thursday, Bashir informed Pakistan may have up to one million jobs in the information technology industry by 2020.

“IBA students are working on a study with assistance from the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s IT committee. The report, to be published in a few months, underlines that by 2020, Pakistan can easily have a million jobs and exports of $10 billion in the IT industry,” he asserted.

He expressed hope that the current figure of 0.15 million jobs in the industry could easily be increased. “I see a bright future for our industry, which is producing top-quality software,” said Bashir.

“We are meeting the IT ministry on behalf of Pasha – the chamber for IT in the country – to get officials to refocus on the sector,” said Bashir.

Commenting on the resignation of former IT minister Babar Awan, he said, “The minister was an important, focal point of the industry.”

“I have heard that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing funds and a data centre will be created in Islamabad,” he said while talking about the e-government programme.

Replying to a complaint that large organisations in the country, such as banks, did not give projects to local firms, he said that there were up to 60 large companies in Pakistan which needed tried and tested software.

He, however, explained that there were at least 10,000 small companies that would not be able to afford services of large international firms and would have to adopt local software solutions, which would help the economy grow.

[Riaz Haq]

China has become Pakistan's largest trading partner, replacing the US which slipped to third place, according to Dawn News:

China has emerged as Pakistan’s largest trading partner replacing the US and is being closely followed by the UAE. The US has slipped to third position on the list of the top ten trading partners.

Germany and the UK occupy eighth and 10th slots respectively and Japan is no more on the ten top list. The latest rankings based on the FY11 statistics indicate that Pakistan is doing much more trade within Asia and its reliance on American and European markets is on the decline.
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Emergence of the new rich in China and expansion in middle-income consumers in the Middle Eastearn countries opened up new opportunities for Pakistan to boost trade with all these nations. Moreover, the trade gravity played its part in redirecting our external trade towards South and East Asia including Malaysia and Indonesia.

Small wonder then, that in the last fiscal year seven out of the top ten largest trading partners of Pakistan were all Asians—China, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Afghanistan and India. And all of them except Saudi Arabia and India showed an improvement in their respective rankings, in a small span of three years.

“Interestingly whereas recession in the US and troubled political relationship between Islamabad and Washington affected growth of bilateral trade, the surge in the US troops in Kabul aimed at winding up the military operation there increased our exports to Afghanistan,” according to a senior official of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP). That explains, at least in part, why Afghanistan’s seventh slot among our largest trading partners in FY11.

Our exports to Kabul totaled $2.3 billion in FY11. This growth trend is continuing and in the first five months of this fiscal year, exports to Afghanistan have touched a billion dollars mark------------
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Business leaders say Pakistan’s top bilateral trade partners are changing not just because of economic miracle of China and overall better average economic growth in Asia than in America and in Europe. “Increase in imports from China, for example, is also related to the Chinese investment projects in Pakistan part of which are scaling down American influence,” said a former president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
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India and China are two of the six countries on the list of the top ten trading partners with whom Pakistan runs trade deficits.
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The other four are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia. Whereas Pakistan imports large amounts of costly fuel oil from the first three countries, it runs trade deficit with Malaysia primarily due to huge import bills of palm oil.
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With four countries out of the ten largest trading partners, Pakistan boasts of a trade surplus. These are the US, Afghanistan, Germany and the UK. “Whereas it is easier to retain Afghanistan as a major export market and it is encouraging that Bangladesh has emerged as a billion-dollar market for our products, the US, Germany, the UK and other European countries are equally important for sustained growth in overall exports,” remarked chairman of Pakistan Bedwear Exporters Association Mr. Shabbir Ahmad. He and many other exporters believe that normalisation of political relationship with the US and continuing of efforts to win trade concessions in European Union are required for keeping exports on a high growth trajectory.

http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/16/top-ten-trading-partners.html

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a CNN blog post on US pushing economic integration in central and south Asia region:

The United States aims to promote stability in Central Asia by encouraging trade in the region, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton told CNN.

The American strategy focuses on bolstering north-south trade, linking India and Pakistan via Afghanistan to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

“If people are trading with each other, if they are investing in each other's countries, if they are engaged in commerce of all kinds, there develop relationships and, frankly, stakes in peace and security that are desperately needed,” Clinton told CNN’s Jill Dougherty.

“Security yes, we have to work on that, but what is really promising is the economic integration of the entire region,” she added.

But for many countries in the region, economic integration is seen as secondary to security. Instead of borders opening to trade, many are closing. But Clinton cited increased trade between India and Pakistan and across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as examples of progress.

She added: “There is an important idea of a pipeline that would carry gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan into India; all four countries are in support.

“There are roads and bridges being planned that come from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan into Afghanistan that go through Turkmenistan to the sea. There’s just a lot of ideas.”

And she said trade could help combat extremism in the region. “Some countries would like to build a 20-foot wall because they worry about extremists from other places,” said Clinton. “That’s just not realistic in the 21st century. It’s far better to develop your economy to trade with your neighbours to give your young people jobs. That’s one of the best arguments against extremism.”

Clinton gave Uzbekistan as an example of U.S. investment, where an American automobile manufacturing plant is producing cars for export in the region.

“Each country has unique assets that can be capitalized on but no country alone can maximize their economic potential without opening their borders to more trade and investment,” she said. “So while we work bi-laterally with a lot of these countries to help them, we also continue to preach the idea of economic integration.”

She added: “We do have to put security at the forefront, and the United States has helped every one of these countries with security. But what is security for? It is to enable people to have a better life and one of those is by raising the stand of living and business, investment, and trade can do that.”

http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/03/clinton-trade-key-to-fight...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's ET on policy research training with EU:

The Ministry of Commerce will conduct trade policy research in collaboration with the European Union (EU) for increasing exports and domestic commerce.
A statement issued by the ministry on Friday said that the EU will assist Pakistan in policy research on the initiatives contained in the recently announced three-year Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) 2013-15.
In this regard, a meeting was held of the Public Private Dialogue Steering Committee, established by the Ministry of Commerce to hold public-private dialogue on specific trade policy issues and commission policy research studies.
The meeting also reviewed policy research studies, conducted during 2012, on enhancing export potential in livestock and dairy sectors, enhancing exports to Europe, enhancing competitiveness and export potential for trade with India.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/517900/trade-policy-eu-to-assist-pakist...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's PakistanToday on Pak trade figures in FY 2012-13:

KARACHI - The country’s trade balance slid by a significant 19.7% MoM to a comfortable $ 1.743 billion in Jun-13, said the analysts at InvestCap Research citing data recently issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Whereas the exports on a monthly basis inched up slightly by 1% MoM to $2.197 billion in Jun-13, the imports stepped down by 9.4% MoM to USD3.940 billion. “Such a trend can be explained by the absence of fertilizer imports in Jun-13, whereas the same stood at 97k tons in May-13 (USD53.7mn), the contribution of Urea to Jun-13 figures was absent due to delay in supply which is now expected to be received by the end of July-13,” said InvestCap analyst Muniba Saeed. Further, she said, contributors to the declining imports are expected to be fall in palm oil imports (importers already having stocked up for Ramadan), decline in imports of textile machinery and falling imports of generators. On an annual basis, the imports remained essentially stagnant increasing by a meager 0.08% YoY, climbing to a level of $44.950 billion in FY13. “Such a trend was witnessed despite decline in imports of petroleum products, fertilizer and the food group; the three heads combined contributing roughly 60% to total imports for the year,” the analyst said. The same was, however, negated by increased imports of machinery and the textile group leading to the imports head remaining effectively the same as last year, she said. Exports on the other hand increased by 3.78% YoY adding an additional USD894mn to the head to reach USD24,518mn. Such expansion is expected to be led by increased exports from the food group where sugar is projected to be the major contributor in fuelling such growth. Exports from the other heads are however expected to have subsided during the same period where major contribution is anticipated from the textile and petroleum group. The trade balance for FY13 as a result posted a decline of 4% YoY, descending to an amount of USD 20,432mn.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/07/16/news/profit/rising-expor...

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan launched a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization on Wednesday to challenge the European Union's punitive duties on Pakistani exports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the WTO said in a statement.
Pakistan says the EU has broken WTO rules in the way that it imposed anti-subsidy duties on PET, which is used in synthetic fibres, plastic bottles and food containers.
Under WTO rules, the EU has 60 days to try to settle the dispute in direct talks, after which Pakistan could escalate the issue by asking the WTO to set up a panel to adjudicate.
Pakistan's exports of PET were worth just over $200 million last year, according to data from the International Trade Center, a U.N.-WTO joint venture. Although its exports have grown, sales to the EU have dwindled in the past few years.
The EU accounted for over 80 percent of Pakistan's foreign sales of PET a decade ago, but less than 10 percent of Pakistani PET exports went to the EU in 2013, a tiny slice of the EU's $4.3 billion imports of the material.
The dispute is the first that Pakistan has initiated in almost a decade and its first against the EU. It previously launched three disputes - two against the United States and one against Egypt, which was settled in 2006.

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6N0SV4AV20141105