#MargallaDialogue2026| #IPRI
Forum Econ|
Pakistan's Economic Bottlenecks: Diagnosis and Prescription
Shahbaz Syed, President & CEO @EximBankPK,
"As a representative of Pakistan's official national export credit agency, I believe this institution should have been established a long time ago. When you look at comparable institutions around the world, some have existed for a hundred years or more, while others have been operating for multiple decades. Pakistan's ECA came into being only in the last two or three years, and since then, we have been trying to establish ourselves to serve exporters better. If I take you back 20 years, Vietnam was exporting around $32 billion. Today, Vietnam's total exports stand at $475 billion. That is a massive change. What has Vietnam done? That is a case we need to examine. If we compare ourselves with our eastern neighbour, Bangladesh, it exported $48 billion last year, and it is still struggling with an external exposure of perhaps two or three billion dollars. What is stopping us from exporting more? There are several factors, and I'll be very specific and brief. First, our industries and exporters have become very comfortable selling in the domestic market. We have a population of around 250 million, making Pakistan a large market. When you sell locally, you are not required to meet the same standards or build the same brands. In my previous career, I observed that in some cash-rich economies, producers were comfortable selling in the domestic market, and the drive to export was not there. Second is the competitiveness of what we produce. As Dr. Shah also explained, we have to produce goods that we are able to sell internationally. Pakistan has suffered from a significant lack of investment. Some studies suggest that, over the last four decades, underinvestment in capital expenditure and production platforms has reached around $180 billion. This is not something that can be addressed in one, two, or three years. We need policy checks and mechanisms that help us produce for the world and meet international standards, rather than simply producing what we want and reselling it to customers. We need to produce what customers want. If we are to scale up and expand, we must improve our quality so that we can compete internationally. Another factor is the cost of inputs. For businesses, this cost comes from many sources, including the cost of financing. I'll come to that because I run the national EFS and the national long-term export financing facilities for the government. The tariff structure, labour costs, and all other production inputs add to the overall cost of products. When we look at our export mix, more than 60% of exports come from textiles and related sectors."
youtube.com/live/LlOeR97nV…
Forum Econ|
Pakistan's Economic Bottlenecks: Diagnosis and Prescription
Shahbaz Syed, President & CEO @EximBankPK,
"As a representative of Pakistan's official national export credit agency, I believe this institution should have been established a long time ago. When you look at comparable institutions around the world, some have existed for a hundred years or more, while others have been operating for multiple decades. Pakistan's ECA came into being only in the last two or three years, and since then, we have been trying to establish ourselves to serve exporters better. If I take you back 20 years, Vietnam was exporting around $32 billion. Today, Vietnam's total exports stand at $475 billion. That is a massive change. What has Vietnam done? That is a case we need to examine. If we compare ourselves with our eastern neighbour, Bangladesh, it exported $48 billion last year, and it is still struggling with an external exposure of perhaps two or three billion dollars. What is stopping us from exporting more? There are several factors, and I'll be very specific and brief. First, our industries and exporters have become very comfortable selling in the domestic market. We have a population of around 250 million, making Pakistan a large market. When you sell locally, you are not required to meet the same standards or build the same brands. In my previous career, I observed that in some cash-rich economies, producers were comfortable selling in the domestic market, and the drive to export was not there. Second is the competitiveness of what we produce. As Dr. Shah also explained, we have to produce goods that we are able to sell internationally. Pakistan has suffered from a significant lack of investment. Some studies suggest that, over the last four decades, underinvestment in capital expenditure and production platforms has reached around $180 billion. This is not something that can be addressed in one, two, or three years. We need policy checks and mechanisms that help us produce for the world and meet international standards, rather than simply producing what we want and reselling it to customers. We need to produce what customers want. If we are to scale up and expand, we must improve our quality so that we can compete internationally. Another factor is the cost of inputs. For businesses, this cost comes from many sources, including the cost of financing. I'll come to that because I run the national EFS and the national long-term export financing facilities for the government. The tariff structure, labour costs, and all other production inputs add to the overall cost of products. When we look at our export mix, more than 60% of exports come from textiles and related sectors."
youtube.com/live/LlOeR97nV…
