While macroeconomic indicators have achieved feeble stability over the past year, on-the-ground conditions remain as hopeless as they were a year ago.

There’s abundant rhetoric about increasing exports, but it’s nothing new. If rhetoric and targets were all it took, Pakistan would be the largest exporter in the world. In fact, the impracticality of plans like Uraan Pakistan is that it envisions at 6 percent CAGR and US$50 billion in exports over the next 5 years. Starting from US$373.08 billion GDP in 2024, 6 percent CAGR lands us at US$499.27 billion GDP in 2029. With US$50 billion exports, that is around 10 percent in export to GDP, which is the around same as where we are today, and 25 years ago.

To build an export-based economy, economic activity must become disproportionately export-oriented, and export growth must consistently outperform GDP growth by a significant margin. If something as fundamental is overlooked in a plan prioritizing exports as its first pillar, it raises serious concerns about the coherence and effectiveness of the framework.

The plan ignores another major ground reality: Pakistan is straight-jacketed in a very stringent IMF programme, with no control over its economic policies or space to give incentives for export. In fact, the programme specifically withdrew existing incentives and concessions given to exporters, and with good reason.

The most fundamental issue in Pakistan’s economy is it was one day decided that these are going to be our export sectors, and these are going to be our domestically oriented sectors. The export sectors were showered with subsidies and concessions to make them competitive in international market, and domestic sectors were showered with protection to shield them from international competition in the domestic market. The result is that neither the export nor the domestic sectors have achieved the productivity and innovation necessary to compete globally.

While Pakistan champions itself a textile and apparel exporter, which comprise over half of its total exports, its share in global textile and apparel exports is only 1.5-2 percent. It’s not that Pakistan is a major exporter of textiles; rather, Pakistan happens to export a bit of textiles and not much else because all other sectors have been so heavily protected from imports that they never bothered working on improving production efficiency and quality.

This kind of policymaking has brought us to the point where the........

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