Pakistan must set its house in order, say experts on its economic crisis

Pakistan is facing an unprecedented diplomatic and economic crisis and even its friends in the Islamic world now recognise that the country has to set its house in order and not support radical groups to operate from its territory global strategic experts saidThey were also largely in agreement that the Pakistani deep state is shaken up and does not know how to handle or control the frankenstein that it created in the form of terrorist group TehreekeTaliban Pakistan TTPPakistan has been reeling under a massive economic crisis with the countrys rupee recording a historic low of 275 to the US dollar inflation rising to over 27 per cent and foreign exchange reserves dropping to the lowest level since 1998 at around USD 3 billion which is not enough even to cover a months imports The problem has been further exacerbated by a series of terror attacks including a major suicide bombing in the northwestern city of Peshawar on January 30 that killed more than 100 peoplePakistan governments negotiations with the International Monetary Fund IMF to unlock USD 11 billion funds have not yet yielded positive results triggering fears of further deterioration in the overall situationHusain Haqqani a former Pakistan ambassador to the US and Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute said terrorism has blocked foreign direct investment into Pakistan and its unrealistic dependence on China has resulted in a huge external debtThe experts also pointed out the aiddriven nature of Pakistans economy and said the country must look at avenues for revenue generation Pakistans recurrent economic crises are the product of a refusal to reform The countrys national narrative has led to everincreasing and unsustainable military spending Jihadist terrorism has blocked foreign direct investment An unrealistic dependence on China has resulted in huge external debt Haqqani said And poor relations with neighbours Afghanistan and India have limited trade prospects Pakistan needs to go beyond a political economy of conflict to become prosperous and that seems a bridge too far for now he addedFormer Indian Army chief Gen retd JJ Singh said Pakistan appears to have already pressed the button to selfimplode The situation is slowly spiralling out of control and we do not know who is actually calling the shots in Pakistan The deep state in Pakistan is also shaken up and they do not know how to handle or control the frankenstein they created in the form of TTP Singh told PTIAlso read Shehbaz Sharif flexes nuclear muscle says India cannot see Pakistan with evil eyeIt is a cause of concern for everybody including India when a country having nuclear weapons is in a situation where there appears to be a serious problem of leadership he saidFormer Indian high commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy said Pakistan must move away from promoting terrorism and focus on constructive economic cooperation if it wants to get out of the crisis Pakistan now faces an unprecedented diplomatic and strategic crisis Even its friends in the Islamic world recognised that it also has to set its house in order and not support radical Islamic groups and terrorists on its territories and its neighbourhood he said Pakistans past embrace of the Taliban has done its neighbourhood immense damage It would be welladvised to move away from promoting terrorism to constructive economic cooperation bilaterally and regionally he saidFormer Indian Army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor said that the situation in Pakistan is too fluidSajid Tarar a successful PakistaniAmerican businessman said the inflation in Pakistan is going through the roof and attributed the current collapse of the countrys economy to corruption by successive governments There is no accountability he said Our ruling elite has no interest in Pakistan he allegedDr Farzana Shaikh Associate Fellow of AsiaPacific Programme at Chatham House London said that economic turmoil in Pakistan was in the making for the last few months and became increasingly acute since the new government took over Where precisely the blame lies is difficult to establish because the current government blames the precarious economic situation to be the fault of the previous government headed by former prime minister Imran Khan she said But I think it is also fair to say that the economic turmoil has been made much worse by the fact that the current government simply did not have a coherent policy in place to address what it knew would develop into an economic crisis she saidShaikh also echoed concerns flagged by Gen retd SinghFor the region Pakistan is not a small country it is 220 million people its nuclear armed and if this economic crisis fuels instability the spillover and effect on neighbouring countries could be quite serious There is really no underestimating that she saidDr Hafiz Pasha an eminent economist of Pakistan said the situation is critical but the government has taken the decision to implement the IMF programme that will bring USD 11 billion and open channels for support from other multilateral institutions and countries Pakistan still needs 10 to 12 billion dollars in the current year ending in June But after the IMF loan is made available things will improve So the worst will be over and there will be no fear of default once the IMF program is on the track he said But it will further increase the debt burden and the country cannot tackle these loans without going for debt restructuring We should go for restructuring and plan for the long term he saidFor the long term he said Pakistan needs to increase exports and taxes Without these measures we cannot bring economic stability Another thing is to control imports There is also a need to control expenses he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or 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