For thirty years, Pakistan's automobile industry has enjoyed among the highest tariff walls in the region. In return, it has given us expensive cars, shallow localisation, negligible exports, and no global competitiveness. The world economy, however, has moved on. Yet our industrial debate remains trapped in an old vocabulary: protection versus openness, tariffs versus free trade, subsidies versus markets.

That vocabulary is now obsolete. It is being rewired. Supply chains are shifting across geopolitical lines, advanced manufacturing is gaining ground and AI-related goods - semiconductors, servers, data-centre infrastructure, robotics and cloud systems - have become among the fastest-growing engines of global commerce. The new geometry of trade carries a hard message: the world no longer rewards countries that merely shield domestic industry. It rewards reliability, technology, logistics efficiency, policy predictability and integration into global value chains.

Pakistan continues to spend much of its policy vim defending legacy sectors through tariff walls, selective incentives and periodic bailouts. The result is an industrial structure that survives but does not transform.

Much of Pakistan's industrial policy remains disproportionately focused on protecting sunset sectors while underinvesting in sunrise industries. While the world competes in semiconductors, AI infrastructure, batteries, advanced electronics and digital services, Pakistan remains preoccupied with defending low-productivity sectors that struggle to export competitively even after decades of support.

For decades, we have tried to build industry through protection, subsidies and import restrictions. But protection alone........

© The Express Tribune