$60b export goal unlikely to be met

Exports have become uncompetitive after the government doubled gas prices for in-house power generation by factories, thus, the three-year goal of increasing exports to $60 billion may be missed, the Pakistan Business Council (PBC) told Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday. What a paradoxical situation it is as the miseries of industries are an achievement for the government that has met an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan condition to either make gas unaffordable for in-house power generation or completely cut it off. The government has chosen the first option, which became the reason for the PBC — a representative body of manufacturers — to write a letter to the prime minister. "Your $60 billion export target by 2027 is unlikely to be achieved. The competitiveness of manufacturing for the domestic market, which reduces reliance on imports, will also suffer due to the higher cost of gas," the PBC wrote to the PM. Pakistan's exports this year are expected to increase to more than $35 billion but this is insufficient to take the nation out of the debt cycle.