According to FINANCE Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan’s GDP might expand to $3 trillion by 2047, a ten-fold increase, making it a high-middle income nation. While achieving that level of development or economic transformation is challenging, it is not impossible.
India achieved this achievement to become the fifth-largest economy in the world by growing its GDP from less than $275 billion to over $3.7 trillion in just 30 years after it started implementing reforms seriously in order to get out of a dire situation brought on by external debt. It hasn’t gone back to the IMF for assistance since, and it’s currently well on its path to overtaking the US and China as the third-largest economy in the world. The latter has transformed itself into the second-largest economy in the world and lifted millions of its people out of poverty over decades of extremely high yearly growth—10 percent.
There are also instances of Southeast Asian nations that, just a few decades ago, were less developed and poorer than our own, but have since made significant progress. These economies offer us the way to better times, even though they haven’t completely conquered poverty or developed into high-middle-income countries. However, as we currently live on borrowed money, occasionally expressing a wish to become wealthy would not make a difference. Pakistan must adopt the route others have successfully travelled if it is to achieve middle-income status and put an end to the ongoing cycle of instability that has forced Mr. Aurangzeb to travel to Washington in order to request the nation’s 24th IMF bailout. It must really and conscientiously carry out reforms to curtail the role of government in the economy, promote growth led by the private sector, and facilitate trade and investment by removing obstacles to economic integration with the surrounding and worldwide economies.
However, the foundation of these reforms must be long-term budgetary stabilisation measures. Jihad Azour, the IMF’s head for Middle East and Central Asia, recently emphasised the importance of prioritising reforms in order to revitalise the Pakistani”In order to give Pakistan its full potential for growth, it is imperative that we accelerate the reforms and double down on their structure at this point in time,” he stated.
The issue facing us is that the members of our ruling class are still attempting to evade the severe reforms that will threaten their privileges. One manifestation of this mindset is the establishment of SIFC as an island of facilitation for specific international or local investors. However, it will not be easy to continue in this manner. A debt-ridden nation cannot wish its way into a middle-income economy when geopolitical rent is growing harder and harder to come by.
