As expected, after surprising to the upside in July exports just sagged in August, dropping 15 percent month-on-month and 21 percent year-on-year. There are a number of reasons for this but of all of them the one that the government could have done something about quite nicely was the paralysis that gripped Karachi and surrounding areas after record-breaking rains recently. Had authorities taken timely action and kept the port city functioning properly, surely the hit would not have been quite as bad. Then there is the matter of high running costs and unavailability of inputs even as Pakistan tries to capture markets lost to other countries, like India and Bangladesh, because of the coronavirus.
Yet one of the most significant factors is exogenous and simply out of the Pakistani government’s control. Things have returned to as close to normal as possible, under the circumstances, in Pakistan but much of the world tells a very different story. Mainland Europe and the USA, for example, have failed to get a grip on the spread of the virus and therefore these parts are now experiencing a very disturbing second wave. The UK especially, where the infection’s resurgence is particularly potent, has little choice but to order another lockdown and get ready to face the economic fallout. The same is true for much of central Europe and the North American continent.
All this has caused our traditional export market to jam. When the economy is simply shut down in countries that traditionally import our products, some sort of trouble will naturally build up in our foreign exchange reserves. The bigger problem is that remittances, which contribute about as much as exports to the national kitty every year, are also mercilessly on the decline. And once again the coronavirus is primarily responsible. As more and more Pakistanis lose their jobs all over the world, how are they going to send the same amounts of dollars, dirhams and euros back home? The government must now be careful not to make up for the shortfall by needlessly jacking up taxes. Let’s not forget that while the virus has not spread as rapidly here as in other countries, the hit to the economy especially because of the earlier lockdown was nonetheless quite savage. And a very large number of people are now less well off than before. To simply increase taxes to make up for revenue shortfall would rub them the very wrong way and they could in the end be forced to vent their frustration by voting against the government at the polls. These are sensitive matters and need to be handled very delicately, not the least because negotiations with the IMF are now at a very crucial stage.
Kashmir, Palestine and the UN
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was right when he said, while addressing the 75th anniversary of the United Nations via video link, that disputes in Kashmir and Palestine were the institution’s most glaring failures. Indeed, one does not even need to get into the breakdown of all that has happened to delay and deter any progress on both counts over the last seven decades or so, just the knowledge that the issues have stood where they were over all this time is proof enough that the UN is not the right forum to have them settled. The main problem is that the organisation allows a select few the right to veto, regardless of how the concerns of veto exercising powers are tilted at any given point in time, and once one of the top few pull the plug on any matter there is only so much all the others, even put together, can achieve.
Palestine never got anywhere and will never get anywhere because of the close friendship, and many arms deals, etc, between Washington and Tel Aviv. And whenever anything at all regarding the rights of the Palestinians or the continuous theft of their territories and olive gardens comes up the American ambassador simply vetoes the said resolution and that is the end of the matter till next time the same exercise is repeated. If this practice hasn’t ended in seventy years there’s nothing to suggest that it will at any point in the future either. The Indians on the other hand, have the enormous pull of their giant market. And by now it has become very clear that the countries in the world that matter and that can make a difference in the lives of millions of people are far more interested in the material gains coming out of potential partnership with Delhi than championing any human rights causes by standing up for poor, suffering Kashmiris.
In this backdrop there is little a country like Pakistan can accomplish by leveraging the platform of the UN, except remind them every now and then that its resolutions and decision are flouted all the time and it has very little if any integrity left, especially in the eyes of all the occupied people in the world right now. That is not to say, of course, that the UN can do nothing right. Over the years its work has proved crucial to many societies in the world, but from the point of view of the oppressed and the occupied, it has failed to achieve much. *
