A bleak arena for internal reforms

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 Five Es framework: Export, E-Pakistan, Environment and Climate Change, Energy and Infrastructure, and Equity and Empowerment. The document uploaded on the planning ministry site says that the Uraan Pakistan initiative would serve as a unifying roadmap to transform Pakistan into an economic powerhouse as the country’s policymakers and planners seek to boost economic growth from 2.5 per cent last fiscal year to 6pc and double the exports to $60 billion a year over the next five years as they expect the private sector to invest $10bn each year. Yet it doesn’t offer any glimpse into that roadmap, barring abstract targets.