For anyone following the Pakistani economy independently and objectively, the unambiguous growing threats tend to be quite obvious. The question is: does the Pakistani economy have enough muscle and, more importantly, leadership with vision and strategy to weather the incoming storm, or possibly the one that has already arrived?

Growth is non-existent, less than the population growth rate; de-industrialisation, rising unemployment, non-existent investment, especially FDI, punishing inflation, coercive taxation, and the list goes on. So, in essence, the answer to the above question is that, provided Pakistan undertakes the requisite rearguard action — short-term measures to mitigate the macroeconomic disruptions and long-term measures to undertake hard-nosed, long-overdue economic reforms to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the Pakistani economy.

It was heartening to hear the finance minister the other day, where he rebuffed any concerns on flawed statistics and numbers, and said that in fact what truly should matter is that the average Pakistani is suffering like never before. While the foreign affairs and mediatory successes are laudable and make all of us very proud, the harsh truth is that the leadership is in office to serve the people first, and anything else should either be secondary or at least not at the expense of the primary objective.

So, what are some of the........

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