The R&D conundrum choking our exports With Pakistani products failing to perform globally, focus on research seems a no-brainer PHOTO: AGENCIES KARACHI: Pakistan, like most developing nations, is locked in a paradox. In theory at least, innovation driven by robust research and development could be the key to breaking it out of a vicious debt and deficit-ridden cycle. Indeed, economists the world over constantly exhort third world governments to spend more on R&D in order to cure their flagging economies. As emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and 3D printing usher in what many see as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that investment could be the difference between market leaders and losers of the future.