Last week, the Shehbaz Sharif government launched its ‘homegrown’ National Economic Transformation Plan: Uraan Pakistan. The five-year 2024/29 initiative is long on ambition, heavy on rhetoric and short on strategy, which it plans to employ to pull off the broader goal of making Pakistan a trillion-dollar economy in the next 10 years and a $3tr economy by 2047. At the core of Uraan Pakistan is
The dialogue between PML-N, its coalition allies, and the main opposition party, PTI, has been fortunately initiated at a time when Pakistan is threatened by a surge in global uncertainties while it is still struggling to achieve durable macroeconomic stability. The dialogue is supported by a strong countrywide consensus to rethink our strategy on revamping and restructuring the economy to open
The US President-elect Donald Trump is taking an aggressive foreign policy and trading posture. And the approach is beginning to yield results, not only from Rawalpindi but also from its major trading and political allies. The countries are taking the threats seriously and are scurrying to meet the demands of the incoming US administration. To ‘Make America Great Again,’ the US President-elect
The government projected optimism as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched the 13th Five-Year Plan (2024-2029) on New Year’s Eve, joined by all four chief ministers representing the major political parties. While the track record of similar past plans tempers confidence, stakeholders have generally not dismissed it as political posturing and appear willing to support the government in delivering
The oil industry has expressed concerns about its exclusion from an official working group tasked with developing a roadmap for deregulating the downstream oil sector. In a letter to the Petroleum Division and Ogra, the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) — an association of over three dozen oil companies and refineries — has said it had requested the government in November last to include ma