Gonzalo Varela from The World Bank identifies areas of improvement:
– Reduce import duties on raw-materials to enable businesses to compete with India, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam.
– Introduce sun-set clause: protect domestic industries “temporarily” from global competition so that they achieve the scale and efficiency with falling protection levels each year. Incentivise to “Think Global”
– Promote exports: Finding new buyers without physical travel through exhibitions require collaborative efforts to pitch Globally though video-links. Govt must overspend to connect businesses with global trading partners.
– Global Standards: Governments must personally engage in mass level education/assistance in acquiring international standards/certification. Need to prove that almost all Pakistani exporters are “compliant”.
– Improve regulatory environment: Reduce the cost of doing business, climb up the World Bank ease of doing business ranking, reduce bureaucratic red tape, don’t wait for yearly budgets to enact changes, reduce human interaction, encourage documentation through incentives & digitize the cash transactions
