Ashkan,
Go to http://www.brecorder.com
Scroll down and youll find the export figure on the right hand side for March which is $ 1.78 bn.
Either way, whether its $18 bn or $21 bn, its still more double that of 1999.
Steel Mills and FDI:
First of all, the steel mills issue has been raised a million times by people who have no idea what the deal was with that. Briefly, the govt. bypassed the law to offer the interested party a SMALL discount (of about 0.5% i think) in return for which the party would establish another steel mill in Pakistan.
Now, steel mills and FDI,
Look at your FDI, most of it doesnt go to govt. or public companies, most goes into the private sector, you could make the (false) argument that the govt. is throwing away public companies at dirt cheap prices hence attracting FDI. But, that argument is inherently flawed, because, most of the FDI goes into the private sector, which lord knows, does not throw away anything for less than its worth. Even 2 days ago, Maybank of Malaysia made purchased roughly $800 million to $1 bn stake in MCB (15% to 20% stake), which was way over the market value of the MCB shares. I guess they must be really stupid for investing in a failed state with a fake bubble economy.
Aid:
I hear this again and again. What does the aid do? Do you know? For the aid to really aid the economy, it would have to be injected into the local economy. Does the govt. take that aid and start handing out cheques to people? Where does that money go? There is an economic component to the aid, which is around 200 million dollars (it will be increased now as a DEMOCRACY DIVIDEND, im sure youve heard). What is 200 million dollars compared to our budget? What is 200 million dollars compared to our GDP? Its peanuts. It doesnt do anything. If you claim this economic growth is due to aid, you havent looked at the details and are just repeating a populist statement made by people who dont really know what aid or finance or the economy is. The majority of the aid goes to purchasing military equipment, operation in Waziristan etc
Foreign remittances are themselves influenced significantly by the state of the economy. eg. Overseas Pakistanis buy property, houses, plots. For instance, now the local investors are taking their money out due the fall in the rupee and the (temporary) stagnation of the economy [but long term FOREIGN investors are still investing in PK].
What on earth does consumption in Pakistan have to do with overseas productivity???
Why, using the same logic, Eritrea or Sudan, does not have a massive growth in consumption due to productivity overseas? Why arent nepalese buying more ipods and ipones due to productivity at apple? That makes no sense, Pakistanis cannot increase their consumption unless they have more incomes, no matter how productive the outside world becomes. That really makes no sense. Pakistanis would either need more income or more money would need to be printed to increase consumption. And, its not more money printing because our monetary policy is extremely tight, interest rates at around 11%
If manufacturing is not increasing, then how did we increase our exports from 8 billion to 18 or 21 billion? Are we exporting hot air? How has consumption of goods locally increased if manufacturing hasnt grown? Are people buying imaginary cars and washing machines?
Our service sector is BOOOOOOOOMING. It is the fastest growing aspect of our economy. Finally, after 60 years, we have broken free from the shakles of other useless, unproductive subsidy gobblers like textiles. If it wasnt for what Shaukat Aziz did with out service sector, our economy wouldnt be 160 billion, rupee wouldnt have only dropped Rs. 7 to the dollar, it would have dropped Rs. 50 to the dollar, our FDI wouldnt be $ 8 billion, we wouldnt be surviving $123 oil barrels, we wouldve collapsed at $23 a barrel.
I.T is booming, retail is booming, real estate is booming, logistics and transportation is booming, music and film and fashion and media is booming, banking and financial sector is booming, aviation is booming, and thats just off the top of my head, its not just telecommunications.
Roads:
Do you really want me to present you a list of highways and motorways built from 2000 to 2008? You guys make me do so much work here =(
I dont think anyone writes here as much as I do lool
But I can dig up and look for the info. if you insist and you still dont believe me? lool
But I dont see the point, I will give you a list, but, you will move onto attacking some other part of the economy/development/infrastructure, then i will reply to that and the cycle will continue.
Anyways, this past govt. in the past 5 years (not 8, just 5) built 30,000 kms of roads, which I assure you was much greater than roads built from 1988 to 1999.
Another important thing worth mentioning is the national trade corridor, one of the first things musharraf govt. discovered was that the cost of doing business in pakistan was too high as the infrastructure and transportation network was awful. what would take a truck a day in china or 2 days in india, would take 7 days in pakistan, so they initiated a $9 billion dollar national trade corridor program. this include $5 billion road networks connecting the country from south in karachi and gwadar to all the major cities and all the upto Afghanistan in the north west and china in the north. this is part of a major plan to benefit from china\\\\\\\'s tremendous growth and develop trade and energy routes. the gwadar port will be used to stimulate greater trade through pakistan. I think the target is $300 billion trade through pakistan by 2020.
sadly, geo and aaj and ary wouldnt know anything about the national trade corridor, they dont bother with such things. you can look it up online if you want more information, there is bound to be some.
Also, if you go live in islamabad and karachi, you can see dozens of roads being built everyday. im sure lahore is also doing okay (i havent been there for a few years).
Another VERY IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION when discussing the economy is. People ALWAYS cite favorable conditions such as aid. However, no one mentions that UNFAVORABLE circumstances.
Oil was $10 in 1999 (yet we still had to beg Saudia to give it to us for free if you remember).
Oil is today 1200% of its 1999 price. Price of steel, price of copper, price of rubber, price of all commodoties, price of food, all these things are many many times more expensive then 1999 in the global market. The law and order situation under which our country is, suicide bombings, operation in waziristan, NATO troops in afghanistan, BB killed, entire country burnt down due to BB\'s death. All the political turmoil, lawyers movement, emergency, elections. A major recession in the US economy, major slowdown in global economy. All these unfavorable circumstances are worse than the favorable ones.
Yet our growth only dropped from 7% to 6.5% (for one year).
