Every week this column finds the same two diseases. The news pages practise stenography: officials speak, reporters transcribe. The opinion pages write in silos: each op-ed diagnoses one fragment, cites no local research, and waits for a donor report to set the agenda. This week supplied textbook cases of both — and, as always, the question neither side asks: what are Pakistan's real economic issues?

The data was plentiful. Textile exports stagnated at $17.9bn, up just 0.26 per cent, with the national export target missed by $4.87bn (Dawn). FDI fell 34 per cent; Bahrain pulled $30m from government securities, adding to over half a billion dollars of foreign outflows from domestic bonds in FY26. Record remittances of $41.6bn still left a $139m current-account deficit as imports rose 8.5 per cent (BR). SBP reserves fell to $17.228bn on external debt servicing (Dawn). LSM grew 5.77 per cent despite a May slump. IT exports hit $4.6bn. The IMF's WEO Update put FY27 growth at 3.5 per cent, cut from 4.1, with inflation raised to 8.4 per cent and the projected current-account deficit doubled (BR).

The institutional items were quieter but telling. The maritime minister claimed record fish exports of $568m; PBS showed $482m — an $86m gap nobody reconciled (Dawn). The Privatisation Commission appointed the ADB as financial adviser for a transaction (BR). Drug price revisions for 105 medicines have sat unimplemented for over two years. A committee was formed to review 24 tax tribunal appointees on Rs2.6m salaries; another to assess GM maize. A GSP compliance report warned that trade success has not been matched by progress on 27 convention commitments (BR). A Senate panel demanded scrutiny of foreign-funded projects. The prime minister announced, again, that agriculture can revive the economy quickly (Dawn).

Dawn ran "Doomed tax initiative", "Barren reforms", "GSP-Plus renewal", and a strong Business and Finance Weekly set: "Financing consumption through SMEs", "Retail investments in debt", "Unprepared for artificial intelligence", "Mangoes in distress", and the reported-analysis piece "Conventional banks favour Islamic lending". Business Recorder carried "Beyond Rs13 trillion tax collection!", "Record remittances: but no room for over-celebration", "The cost of insecurity", editorials on the IMF projection and medicine pricing, and op-eds on the PSDP mandate problem, the single-variable habit in economic debate, the seed-company paradox, the education-revolution ritual, and the Strait of Hormuz. On fiscal federalism, Kaiser Bengali's "World Bank and fiscal distribution" (Dawn) and Shahid Kardar's "World Bank's 'magical discovery'" gave opposite........

© The Friday Times