The State of Pakistan’s Economy

The State of Pakistan’s Economy

The economic team of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf released a white paper on the unimaginable destruction of the country's economy during the last 20 months. In the white paper, the details of PDM's incompetent and amateurish government's gross fiddling with the economy were put before the nation with figures. The white paper presents a detailed review of the best economic performance of Tehreek-e-Insaf government in just 3.5 years.

• When Tehreek-e-Insaf took over the government in 2018, the economy was under the worst crisis in history.
• In its previous term, PML-N mismanaged the energy sector through power plants dependent on imported fuel.
• Tehreek-e-Insaf inherited a revolving debt of 160 billion rupees and annual capacity payments of up to 140 billion thanks to the incompetence of the PML-N government.
• In the fiscal year 2018, the current account deficit was 19.2 billion dollars and the foreign exchange reserves were at the level of 9.4 billion dollars.
• Tehreek-e-Insaf took over an economy in 2018 that was on the brink of collapse and suffering from external crisis.
• Pakistan needed immediate funding of 32 billion dollars to pay its external debt in 2018.
• Prime Minister Imran Khan made every possible effort to reduce the current account deficit and obtain foreign loans from friendly countries to pay the external debt.
• On Prime Minister Imran Khan's commendable handling of the Corona epidemic, the World Bank has included Pakistan in the top three countries that were fighting the best against Covid.
• Despite Covid, Imran Khan ensured investment in agriculture, construction, and industry sectors.
• Imran Khan limited the inflation rate to 12.7% while protecting the nation from the effects of the highest inflation on the global level due to the commodity super cycle.
• PTI achieved a growth rate of 6% in the third and fourth year of the government, PTI is the only government after 2007 to grow at a rate of 6% for 2 consecutive years.
• In FY22, the rate of agricultural growth was 4.4%, which is the highest since FY2005.
• The rate of large-scale manufacturing was 11.5 percent in 2021 and 11.7 percent in 2022, which is the highest since 2005.
• During the 3.5-year government of PTI, the average growth rate was 5.7 percent, which was 5.2 percent in the previous era of PML-N and 3.6 percent in the era of PPP.
• For the first time in the country's history, exports reached a record of 32 billion dollars and remittances reached a record of 31 billion dollars.
• Tehreek-e-Insaf has provided 5.5 million jobs at an annual rate of 1.84 million during the first 3 years of Covid-19, which is the highest compared to the previous periods of PML-N and PPP.
• Tehreek-e-Insaf government brought down current account deficit from 2018 despite commodity super cycle and increased foreign exchange reserves.
• In April 2022, as a result of the regime change conspiracy, the PDM government took over the country and brought the well-functioning economy to the brink of destruction during 16 months.
• Poor policies of the PDM government have destroyed all business activities, resulting in a sharp decline in the economy and an increase in unemployment.
• The record inflation has almost destroyed the purchasing power of the people and as a result the rate of poverty has increased rapidly.
• The PDM government has turned the economy growing at the rate of 6 percent to the worst level in history.
• In May 2023, the annual inflation rate was recorded at 38 percent, the highest in the 70-year history, and food inflation reached 50 percent.
• Unemployment reached a 75-year high of 8.5%, in 16 months of PDM, more than 2 million people became unemployed, and 20 million went below the poverty line.
• Pakistan's credit default swap has increased from 5% to 50% in March 2022 and the risk of bankruptcy of the economy continues to loom.
• Remittances decreased to 27 billion dollars compared to 31.3 billion dollars during the PTI period and exports decreased to 27.7 billion dollars compared to 31.7 billion dollars.
• Pakistani rupee suffered worst depreciation of around 122 percent under PDM government which decreased by only 60 rupees during PTI's 3.5 year tenure.
• Global financial institutions Moody's, Fitch and S&P have downgraded the credit rating of Pakistan's economy to negative.
• PDM increased external debt by around 2 trillion rupees in 16 months while PTI government took a loan of 1.83 trillion rupees in 40 months despite Covid.
• In its staff report, the IMF has highlighted the PDM government's poor policies such as exchange rate manipulation, capital controls and tax measures.
• The growth of the large-scale manufacturing sector has fallen to negative 8 percent in the fiscal year 2023, in which the PTI government has achieved growth of more than 11 percent for 2 consecutive years.
• 15% decrease in exports and 14% decrease in remittances was recorded during PDM’s tenure which had reached historic high during PTI’s government.
• Incompetencies like political bribery, wasteful spending and failure to collect taxes during the 16 months of the PDM government led to the fastest debt collection in the history of Pakistan.
• PDM adopted formulas like manipulation of economic data and artificial control of exchange rate to destroy the economy.
• Through load management of electricity, it created a distortion in energy demand and supply when the production capacity was three times more than the demand for electricity.
• In just 15 days, they imported more than 2 months' worth of oil, that too at a time when international oil prices were at their peak.
• They imposed import restrictions to control currency depreciation and create panic in the market as a result of artificially created current account deficit.
• To spread economic instability, a vile campaign was started that the country is going bankrupt due to the mismanagement of the previous government.
• By withdrawing energy subsidies from exporters and imposing restrictions on imports, the rate of economic growth has become negative.
• By giving tax exemptions to small and medium industries, additional tax burden was placed on large industries.
• In order to reduce the current account deficit and strengthen domestic currency, methods such as increase in policy rate and manipulation of data were adopted.

In summary, the architects of the regime change operation attempted to deceive the public by propagating the propoganda of an economic default and inflation, despite the economy thriving amidst the challenges of COVID. People were content. However, in a mere 16 months, the PDM has wreaked havoc on the economy, leading to a historic surge in inflation.