There is no shortage of advice to the policy planners in this country. The President of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Malik Tahir Javed, has called for immediate measures to improve the economic indicators and socio-economic structure of the economy. Stakeholders must be taken on board to bring the economy out of the mire, private sector should be facilitated and a plan should be evolved to arrest the export slide. The target for increasing employment opportunities could be achieved by promoting power, mining, manufacturing, transportation and service industries. In agriculture, focus should be on value- addition chain in semi-processed agro-based industries like juices, ready to use meat, dairy and poultry items. Direct taxes should be levied and indirect taxes should be removed. The agricultural produce that falls in the taxable income range must be taxed. For the construction of new dams, a National Water Council should be constituted. Alternate Energy Board must concentrate on biomass. Hydropower and biomass will produce energy at a flat rate of less than Rs 5 per unit. Increased yield in cotton will support local textile industry to take leadership role in the market. Taxation and profiteering from the energy sector should be withdrawn. With more than 10 trillion dollars worth of natural resources, Pakistan must concentrate on developing local technology for excavation of minerals.

Malik Tahir Javed has covered a lot of areas for policy suggestions but there is nothing extraordinary in his advice. For instance, he has stressed the point that stakeholders must be taken into confidence on economic matters and a plan should be designed to arrest the declining trend in export. We feel that the stakeholders are generally taken on board on economic policymaking processes and policies are usually changed after pressure is brought on the government to alter certain policy proposals. So far as promotion of exports is concerned, this is already the top priority of the government and certain measures like PM's package, refinance scheme for exporters and a sudden devaluation of the rupee have already been implemented. It would have been better for the LCCI President to come up with some new ideas to arrest the declining trend in exports or contain imports to improve the external sector account. He has also covered almost all areas of the economy to create 28 million new jobs over the next two decades. Yes, agriculture tax must be levied and people with land occupancy of more than 10 hectares of land should be normally taxed but the LCCI must be aware about the difficulties in imposing such a tax despite a repeated advice by all and sundry in this regard. The constitution of national Water Council does not make much sense as the government is fully aware of the possibilities of building new dams. The advice on the capacity of biomass for energy production and a flat rate of Rs 5 per unit is good and the government is already doing what it can in this field. The withdrawal of all profiteering and taxation from the energy sector is also not possible due to poor state of revenues of the government. Tahir Javed has also asked for improving economic indicators of the economy. He must be aware that it takes a lot of efforts and resources to improve even one indicator like exports or tax revenues. Availability of human resources is another constraint. Tahir Javed may have given his proposals to convince the new bosses at the Ministry of Finance about his understanding of economy but his advice is likely to have little or no impact as the elbowroom for taking the necessary steps is very limited.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017