1st source says there is no shortage of houses but of quality of housing. Might be a valid point of view. Goes on to suggest essentially commie blocks.
2nd study says there is a shortage of housing that will grow by 10 million in 30 years. So actually supports the 10 million houses needed.
Regardless, if you look at other countries that have undergone rural to urban transition, real estate is a engine of growth (like say Turkey). The ideal is to source everything internally. This is actually productive for the economy.
Brent's price is hovering around $76/barrel right now. Why were subsidies being given when the world over prices were being jacked up to limit fiscal exposure in the face of rising energy costs?
Because the idea was to protect people I.e. consumers from volatility of oil prices when they would be sourcing Russian oil at a price that the “subsidized” price would be rational. Sorry I checked today and 55 is for urals only. Current price is 70$ your right. Anyways, the deal that was being negotiated in March was for Russian oil at 70 $/ barrel. What govt was selling oil for to domestic users.
Why was this being done in contravention of commitments to the primary lender, the lender of last resort (IMF) when the country's reserves were low and life support was needed?
It wasn’t. Tareen was giving subsidies from budget that was allocated with permission of IMF.
Why was consumption being promoted when the dollar supply was limited and the reserves were eroding? What is the result of this policy? A strong comeback of the current account deficit? What does that result in? Devaluation of PKR as the hard currency buffers erode?
Nope. Keeping input costs steady (removing high frequency volatility can be argued to be a good thing. We may disagree with it but economists do argue for the validity of this policy. By definition, keeping input costs low increases consumption- but no one has ever said that low oil prices are bad because consumption is higher.
Current account was never the problem. It was half a billion a month when PTI left in February. It is still half a billion. It would be positive if the remittances hadn’t tanked.
It was pure and simple calculus where political self-interest trumped the national interest and interest of 220 million Pakistanis whose savings have been wiped by the ultimate devaluation of PKR driven by the stunt of the PTI regime in its last days.
Nope, PKR devaluation driven by PMLN policies post regime change. Not by PTI policies.
Incorrect, he sent Shabbar Zaidi (head of FBR) home who was trying to rope in the real estate sector into the tax net. Instead, amnesty was given to whiten black money by investing in the real estate sector instead of export-based manufacturing.
Yet exports and services (IT) boomed. So did remittances. Like I said, PTIs track record at imposing real estate taxes is modest but not negligible.
You do not go to the root cause of low productivity.
I do - low productivity is because of low capital investment because of low food prices set by govt (below international market prices). Letting farmers make profit gives them opportunity to invest back in their farms increasing productivity. Also setting water prices which I discussed will allow them to use better techniques.
Farmer is abandoning farming and selling arable land for the development of commercial establishments. Look at what's happening in the GT road belt. Erecting a grey structure and then renting it out to traders and vendors are commercially more feasible for many in rural Punjab today than growing crops to feed themselves and the masses.
Yes but like I said, this is normal to an extent. Lack of arable land is not a constraint right now. We have 25% productivity. We lose 50% of produce before it hits the market. Those things are issues. Invest in cold storage. That alone will solve this problem.
Real estate is sapping the productivity of your economy. It is impoverishing you. What you say in this particular respect is also true, but so is this.
Agree and disagree. The current fashion how the only safe investment is real estate is the problem. That the projects are not rationalized anymore either too. If real estate would be rationalized, it can be a growth engine.
