For most of its history, Pakistan has been told that geography is destiny.

Look at the map, the argument goes. Pakistan sits between South Asia, Central Asia, China and the Middle East. It touches the Arabian Sea and lies beside some of the world’s largest energy producers and one of its largest economies. Give it roads, ports and railways, and it becomes the gateway connecting regions and markets.

It is an attractive story. There is only one problem.

The world has changed what it pays for.

Geography still matters. But sitting between important places no longer makes a country economically important. The countries that successfully monetise geography have spent decades building something on top of it.

The WTO estimates that roughly 72 per cent of world trade still takes place on most-favoured-nation terms.

The WTO estimates that roughly 72 per cent of world trade still takes place on most-favoured-nation terms.

Singapore is one of the world’s great crossroads, but ships do not call there because a map tells them to. Its port connects to more than 600 ports and handled a record 44.7 million containers, measured in twenty-foot equivalent units, in 2025. Around that location it built shipping, finance, insurance, bunkering and logistics.

The UAE’s location has not changed in centuries. What changed is what it built around it: airlines, ports, free zones, financial centres and logistics. By early 2025, non-oil activities accounted for more than three-quarters of its economy. Vietnam followed another route, inserting itself deeply into global manufacturing and supply chains.

Geography provided the opportunity. Capability captured the value.

A gateway is not a location. It is a capability.

Pakistan, however, may still be trying to sell the world a map.

Listen to our economic vocabulary. Gateway to Central Asia. Gwadar as the gateway to western China. CPEC connecting China to the Arabian Sea. Energy corridor, transit corridor, trade corridor.

There is always a corridor, usually accompanied by an arrow on a PowerPoint slide showing something passing through Pakistan on its way somewhere else.

But transit is........

© Daily Times