Rising imports of industrial inputs signal economic revival, not decline, as Pakistan embarks on tariff reform
Each month, when the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) releases its trade figures, one number grabs headlines: the trade deficit or the gap between imports and exports. The latest data, showing a 38% increase in the first four months of the fiscal year, was no exception. Predictably, critics of trade reform were quick to argue that Pakistan's import liberalisation is driving the country towards economic ruin.
Some even call the tariff reform a "suicide mission." Their solution is predictable: return to the old playbook of regulatory and additional duties. But this strategy has been tried repeatedly over the last 17 years, and each time it worsened the very problems it aimed to solve, le
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