The last week of September was celebrated across many Asian regions to mark home competitiveness of countries, with many Asian tigers and emerging Asian economies showcasing what they have achieved over the last decade in terms of home manufacturing competitiveness and import substitution — sadly, Pakistan featured nowhere, as we are our own worst enemies! Interestingly, one heard a governmental advisor last week stating to a private sector association how Pakistani products are uniquely recognised in international markets, the hour has now arrived for value addition, and how the government is planning on facilitating domestic manufacturing to promote import substitution as an urgency. However, going by its record thus far, the talk came across as nothing but more of the same hollow rhetoric! So, how, in comparison to us, have our regional neighbours fared in boosting domestic manufacturing while curtailing imports? Why I invariably choose India and Bangladesh as comparative examples is because, after all, we come from shared origins, which in one case is as close as merely 50 years (half the human life cycle benchmarked for this century).

For both of them, India celebrated its 12th anniversary and Bangladesh its 15th of 'Made in India/Bangladesh' campaigns respectively, both emerging from some chequered economic history of independence, where both governments rediscovered a strategic pivot to a new economic model shaped by their governments, albeit this time operationally inspired cum led by the private sector. A far cry from a public sector-dominated India or a West Pakistan-dominated Bangladesh in their histories of independence (ironically, two times in the case of the........

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