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ADB plans $7.1 billion for inclusive growth

Put an annual quota on imports related to electronics for a while, particularly cell phones..

Disagree with the mobile phone part. There's been a lot of research conducted that says cheap smartphones are great tools for developing countries at uplifting poorer, rural area populations as it can provide access to communication (without having to install more costly fixed landlines), increase productivity, secure payment methods, internet etc. These could be a great tool in the hands people living in more harder to reach areas. Quotas risk making the cheaper phones prohibitively expensive.
 
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Agreed. Why not place a quota and then offer one of the Chinese manufactuers to set up a plant in PK with a 5 year captive market guarantee?

And than tax that locally made phone so high that it cost more than iPhone and keep eyes closed on smuggling.
Smuggling afterall is big source of earnings for politicians and mafias.


Totally disagree to ADB... no one trust Pakistani politicians for hard cash, why would ADB? Something is not right here

I hope new govt. will maintain transparency over the loan proceedings and it0s spending as well.
 
Honestly Pakistan does not even need tariffs and quotas for this (these can be abused later and create inefficiencies and dependencies). They can just make industrial zones and export zones etc for electronics assembly (and make them tax and excise free). Pakistan labour is cheaper than Chinese labour by enough amount now.....even considering what is available and trained sufficiently in Pakistan's labour pool. With enough tax holiday, the capacity is generated automatically to propel it past that holiday (and earnings can be reinvested in more training and moving up the chain as feasible by the free market dynamics)...because the ROI for the investor is largely guaranteed and shielded...but the assets are more inelastically entrenched (i.e a long term benefit capture). Its the basic tiger economy model.

This all will upset the vested interests and karachi-cabal we talked about earlier though. Pakistan needs to focus its govt/bureaucracy on a few focused things like rule of law, standards etc (things that are equally accessible to every citizen)...rather than partitioning and micro managing every economic related thing it can (because then it just becomes the tool of the vested interests that line their pockets). As few govt levers in the market is the best policy for both jobs and growth.

Totally agree. I am guessing the reasons that private foreign investment is still a bit hesitant are 1) insufficient infrastructure like lack of economical transportation and certainly energy shortfall 2) security concerns 3) business friendly environment like friendly regulations and bureaucracy. Labor cost is clearly a factor but other factors can be equally important if not more for investors.

CPEC is aiming to solve the first issue and is making good progress. Pakistani government and military are working hard on the second issues. I have not seen enough enough information that the third issue has been sufficiently worked and addressed. As you rightly pointed out, these changes will upset certain interest parties that are well off in the current environment. The current government will see resistance or struggle against when the reform moves deeply into the economy. It would be a lot easier in China as the government has the unchallenged power to push through the reform but it would be a lot harder in Pakistan I’d imagine. Pakistan will have to do the hard yard itself on this.
 
Totally agree. I am guessing the reasons that private foreign investment is still a bit hesitant are 1) insufficient infrastructure like lack of economical transportation and certainly energy shortfall 2) security concerns 3) business friendly environment like friendly regulations and bureaucracy. Labor cost is clearly a factor but other factors can be equally important if not more for investors.

CPEC is aiming to solve the first issue and is making good progress. Pakistani government and military are working hard on the second issues. I have not seen enough enough information that the third issue has been sufficiently worked and addressed. As you rightly pointed out, these changes will upset certain interest parties that are well off in the current environment. The current government will see resistance or struggle against when the reform moves deeply into the economy. It would be a lot easier in China as the government has the unchallenged power to push through the reform but it would be a lot harder in Pakistan I’d imagine. Pakistan will have to do the hard yard itself on this.

Yeah, I talk about some of the systematic stuff in Pakistan (And region more broadly) compared to Deng's system in China here:

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/for-...your-failures-pti.580636/page-3#post-10843663
 
This is security for next 5 years
Suprised people not talking about this ....this is enough funds

In 2013 We took a loan for 6.6 Billion Dollars thru Nawaz Sharif / Dar & IMF and it lasted full 5 years
 
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