Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘Action Plan to Revive Pak Economy’ Category

The best way to safeguard the consumer interest, is to make it mandatory by law, the printing (at a prominent place) of retail prices, on the product packing of all and every item sold in the market. Plus,  mentioning of retail prices in all media advertisements of any item, advertised in any media of Pakistan.

In this regard, all Senators, MNA’s & MPA’s of Pakistan are urgently requested to legislate the above proposal at the earliest.

The nation will hold the democracy in high esteem, for this monumental favour by the elected representatives.

The news reported in the daily “Pakistan Today” (link:- http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/09/pakistan-has-97-billion-dollars-in-swiss-banks-director-swiss-bank/#IDComment194865889) that Swiss banks have 97 billion dollars, is a smoke screen to mislead the general public. By no means this figure can be less than 200 billion dollars i.e. more than three times the existing foreign debt of Pakistan.

Leaving aside the exact amount of Pakistan’s money in the Swiss banks, our civilian government & parliament, military establisment, bench and bar & the media must devise some mechanism (following the US government’s successful initiative with the Swiss government) to very strongly take up the issue with Swiss government, to immediately return back our money deposited in Swiss banks.

This is all the more necessary for the very survival of Pakistan (Indian defense budget is going to increase from 36 billion dollars to 60 billion dollars in next few years versus Pakistan’s current defense budget of 4-5 billion dollars). Moreover, Pakistan’s economic growth and development is absolutely necessary to stabilize the country to successfully fight the war on terror for the entire world. And we will not be demanding any charity from the Swiss government.

This money belongs to the people of Pakistan and the entire nation (including ruling parties and the opposition) is fully united on this issue. Rather, it will be the biggest gift from the Asif Ali Zardari led PPP to the nation for which voters will elect them to serve the nation for at least 100 years. So come on PPP, rise to the occasion, it is the golden chance for you to re-build a new properous & peaceful Pakistan.

 “I could end the deficit  in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that  anytime there is a deficit of  more than three percent of GDP all sitting members of  congress are ineligible for reelection. “

Why not put it up to Pakistani parliament!!!

The degree of the sovereignty of a nation is  directly proportional to the state of economy of that nation. Actually, in constant growth & development lies our salvation. Secondly, we Pakistanis must know  without any doubt, that the easiest and surest way of moving ahead, is to stand on our own feet. Foreign aid, can keep us afloat, but won’t allow us to swim.

Biggest factor in any victory is self confidence. Anti-thesis of terrorism is education, coupled with economic emancipation.

As such, the nation must embark upon the following agenda, to resurrect our economy without any further loss of time.

1. Request to all foreign donors for a 5 years moratorium, on all debt repayments by Pakistan. 

2. 20%  per annum reduction in all non-developmental government expenditures, plus total freeze in all perks paid from the national exchequer, involving foreign currency. 

3. Increase in productivity & exports with liberal tax relief to industry, commerce & trade.

4. Set a target for 20% per annum  increase in foreign remittances, by offering innovative incentives to expatriate Pakistanis.

5. Abolish FBR (which will alone increase income by Rs.500 billion) & impose flat 10% tax on all & every type of income, withour any exemption (except for the security forces personnel, whose salaries should be doubled with receipt of un-precedented increase in revenue, due to this formula). This will not only reduce income tax burden on salaried class ( with max. tax rate of 10%) but will also result in so much increase of revenues that government will not require any tax imposition  in the budget. Plus, the government will be able to give tax free salaries to all armed forces, rangers, police and other security agencies personnel, who are shedding their blood, in fighting the menace of terrorism, for our safe tomorrow.

6. Initiate steps (by imposing economic emergency) to bring each and every economic activity under document.  

Sir, corruption is the biggest danger to the survial of Pakistan. 

Sir, there is a saying of Hazrat Ali RA, that a system of ‘Kufr’ can sustain but not a system of ‘Zulm’. And in my opinion, the biggest Zulm with the poor after injustice is corruption. In fact, injustice stems from corruption. The monumental increase in corruption has tremendously increased poverty which in turn is now breeding terrorism. 

Pakistan passed the 100 million subscriber milestone in Oct 2010, with five operators fighting for the market share day in & day out, but  still waiting for the introduction of 3G WCDMA technology (High Internet Speed Mobile Access with International Roaming),  to take the telecoms market to the much needed next level.

The 3G Licenses auctioned last year in our neighboring country fetched multi billion dollars, in license fee in addition to a similar amount of foreign direct investments, creating a spree of jobs for not only the highly educated, but also for the less educated  skilled hands, working on things like tower construction.

The question remains why we are shying away from this golden opportunity, to give the much needed life saving shot to our economy?

May be the reason lies in the situation, where the current operators are shying away from the investments that they would have to make, when the licenses are made available and are just keeping a few individuals at the right places “happy”, so that it is deferred, as long as they wish.

With the 3G services available in most of the countries of South Asia and even Africa, why  we are being deprived of the technological and economical benefits and playing the catch up game?

The 3G License or Spectrum auction, which is just like selling “air” is the easiest way to slightly mitigate the ever increasing unemployment rate in the country. Our peoples representatives in the both the houses should take this up seriously, to expedite the ever delayed process.

                                                                                        By A. Muiz Khan

                                         An update by the writer

Although, 100 Million subscribers may seem a big figure in absolute terms yet, in the backdrop of Pakistan, this amounts to only about 60% Mobile penetration; which is far from saturation, with some developed countries having around about the 100% mark. These figures are obtained after the implementation of the standard active subscriber definition in the industry, which has forced the operators to adopt data cleaning process, so the data comes mostly from the active subscribers, hence, a fairly accurate estimate.

Now, the point of adopting 3G is not necessarily to add new subscribers. But if 60 people out of 100 have mobile connections, then to make lets say initially, 15 people out of the active 60, to switch to using the new technology. This will generate new high profit margin revenue streams from data intensive applications, like video calling & HD Video streaming etc.

Now, we as a country can benefit from this situation, by putting the technology on the table for Sale. Surely the existing operators cannot shy away from spending on the candy bar, which will ensure a greater revenue stream for them. However, their aim is to delay it as much as possible, so that they do not have to take out cash at this moment of the financial crunch.

Once we put the technology or as stated in the article “AIR” on sale, we will get instant payments from the operators on acoount of license fee and as the race to launch the first 3G network kicks off to obtain the First-Mover advantage, huge FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) will take place in modernizing and building the network infrastructure, resulting in effective billions of dollars in earnings and creating thousands of jobs in the process.

In the recent auction of the 3G licenses in our neighboring country, only the licenses fee fetched close to USD 15 Billion, which is a huge amount in itself, excluding all the FDI and other positive impacts on the economy, like reduction in unemployment rate.

                                                                                       By A. Muiz Khan

I take this opportunity to advise Mr. Robert Zoellick, that the constant problem of getting funding for the WB can rather, easily be tackled, by laying more emphasis on the counter corruption measures for governments of the Aid Recipient Countries (ARCs).

Moreover, this counter corruption strategy (CCS) will provide manifold benefits, both to the WB & the ARCs.

Just to elaborate the above proposal, it should be understood that mainly the corruption has two roots i.e. direct kick backs and denying installing regimens, that puts full stop to the leakages of billions of dollars of government revenues.

In this regard, Turkey could be cited as a glaring example, where government revenues increased manifolds, when one of such systems was put into practise, on cigarette industry.

In case, World Bank under the dynamic and visionary leadership of Mr. Robert Zoellick, needs my assistance on the proposal, I shall be too glad to offer my services, which may help improve the living conditions of the poor & the suffering people of the world.

Now the time has come to separate the growth, development, education, eradication of poverty & security of Pakistan from the politics, forever.

All stake holders in Pakistan, must immediately come forward for deciding about the direction of the future of the nation.

In this regard, it is suggest that, we should aim to bring Pakistan, to the level of Singapore of 2010, by the year 2030.

All politics & considerations should be made subservient to this target for 2030, even if we have to abolish weekly holidays for the next 20 years & reduce our daily sleeping time to 6 hours.

I am more than confident that by the dint of sheer hard work, sincerity & honesty, which is imbibed in the bones of Pakistani work force, we can surely re-build our country into the comity of 20 developed nations of the world, in the next 15-20 years.

Security of Pakistan’s future depends in its economic growth & development. Moreover, we Pakistanis must know without any doubt, that the easiest and surest way of moving ahead, is to stand on our own feet.

Foreign aid, can keep us afloat but won’t allow us to swim. Biggest factor in any victory is self confidence. Anti thesis of terrorism is education, coupled with economic emancipation of masses.

As such, the nation must embark upon the following four point agenda, for the economic salvation of the country, without any further loss of time.

1. Request to all foreign donors for a 5 years moratorium, on all debt repayment by Pakistan.

2. 20% per annum reduction in all non-developmental government expenditures, plus total freeze in all perks paid from the national exchequer, involving foreign currency.

3. Increase in productivity & exports with liberal tax relief to industry, commerce & trade.

4. Set a target for 20% per annum increase in foreign remittances, by offering innovative incentives to expatriate Pakistanis.