Pipedreams
March 16, 2021
LAHORE: Most of the long-term sector specific announcements by the state are pipedreams that rarely materialise the way they are supposed to.
Take for instance textiles that are the mainstay of our exports. The government regularly announces a five year long-term textile policy which mostly remains a piece of paper only. The 2014-19 textile policy expired two years back.
The long-term policies are meant to give confidence to the investors about the consistency of policies and assurance of support/facilitations during the five year period.
The 2014-19 textile policy was a non-starter that resulted in stagnation of textile exports. During that period, the textile exports in fact declined from its peak in 2013. The present government took a long time in announcing a long-term textile policy. It has come up with a policy draft for year 2020-25 but the same has not been approved by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet. This shows the non-ser