In their three-part "Agenda for tax reforms" series of articles for Business Recorder, Huzaima Bukhari and Dr Ikramul Haq have done a huge favour to this seemingly rudderless government of PML-N. They have plausibly argued, for example, that "Pakistan also faces the herculean task of providing jobs to millions - on an average we need to create 1.2 million jobs annually for young people alone. For achieving this task, we will have to ensure that economy grows at the rate of 8% to 10% per annum over a long period of time - for this we need investment of 20% of GDP. This challenge is also our great opportunity for economic progress. Majority of job-seekers are young people, which are our greatest asset - importing education and skills to them and creating matching jobs is the real challenge. This can be met successfully by assignment of taxes for productive investment and employment generation - our real engine of growth."

That the country needs a higher economic growth rate is a fact. That a higher growth rate will create new job opportunities for the teeming unemployed millions is also a fact. But how can you appreciably increase your growth rate in the presence of a woeful export slide? You can always print Pakistani currency in whatever denominations and quantities you want, but you cannot print dollar that you always need for imports. Hence the need for higher foreign investment in the country as advocated by the two op-ed writers.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017