Pakistan Pakistan Economy Updates

[Fatman17]

When the wheels stop turning

EDITORIAL: The nationwide goods transporters’ strike has been deffered for 40 days after nine days of disruption,...

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EDITORIAL: The nationwide goods transporters’ strike has been deffered for 40 days after nine days of disruption, but the economic damage has already been serious and the dispute itself remains unresolved. The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association estimates losses to exports and allied trade at nearly $900 million, with shipments missed, raw materials stranded and factories facing shortages. The distinction matters because this is only a pause: transporters have made clear that the strike can return if the government fails to honour its commitments.

 

[Fatman17]

When the wheels stop turning

EDITORIAL: The nationwide goods transporters’ strike has been deffered for 40 days after nine days of disruption,...

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EDITORIAL: The nationwide goods transporters’ strike has been deffered for 40 days after nine days of disruption, but the economic damage has already been serious and the dispute itself remains unresolved. The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association estimates losses to exports and allied trade at nearly $900 million, with shipments missed, raw materials stranded and factories facing shortages. The distinction matters because this is only a pause: transporters have made clear that the strike can return if the government fails to honour its commitments.

Freight costs surge 372% after strike | The Express Tribune

Freight costs surge 372% after strike

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[Fatman17]

CORPORATE WINDOW: The crossroads of collapse

As Afghanistan shifts imports towards Iran and Central Asia, Pakistan risks losing not only transit trade but also the industrial and commercial ecosystem built around it.

www.dawn.com

Five years after the Taliban returned to Kabul, Afghanistan’s economic relationship with Pakistan is undergoing a structural shift. For Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, particularly Peshawar, this is not simply a bilateral trade issue. It is increasingly a question of industrial resilience and competitiveness.

The clearest evidence is Afghanistan’s transit trade through Pakistan. Container traffic, which had risen to nearly 89,000 containers worth about $5 billion before the Taliban returned to power, briefly climbed to a record 102,886 containers valued at $6.7bn in FY23.

It then went into reverse. Volumes fell to 54,114 containers in FY24 and 42,959 in FY25, worth $1.36bn. In FY26, they collapsed to just 11,592 containers valued at $367 million, according to customs data cited in a recent Dawn report.

The numbers matter because they show that Pakistan’s October 2025 border restrictions did not create the decline; they accelerated a process that was already under way.

 

[Fatman17]

Importing cotton, exporting aquifers: the arithmetic of surrender

Pakistan imports raw cotton. Let that sentence settle before reading further. A country that once stood among the...

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A country that once stood among the world’s leading cotton producers, that built its entire industrial base on domestic white gold, now buys its primary raw material from abroad. It imports cotton. This imported cotton is then processed using domestic groundwater, dyed with domestic groundwater, finished with domestic groundwater, and exported back as a triumph of industry. Every container of yarn, denim, and ready-made garments leaving Karachi Port carries thousands of litres of Punjab’s and Sindh’s aquifer water, paid for by the water table beneath our fields.

This is not a supply chain. It is hydrological “money laundering”. We import someone else’s raw cotton, launder it through our depleting aquifers, and book the foreign exchange as a national victory. The industry adapted by outsourcing the cultivation to foreign farmers and keeping the processing water problem at home. The laundering is structural, not individual.

This is absolutely insane

Surge in cotton production in Sindh

The province usually has limited water in March and April, but better flows recently have resulted in higher arrivals of phutti in factories so far this year.

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[Fatman17]

Pak freelancers’ earnings may reach USD2.5bn in current fiscal year

KARACHI: Pakistan’s freelancing market is rapidly emerging, and the export earnings of Pakistani freelancers are...

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According to Ibrahim Amin, Pakistan has emerged as the fourth-largest emerging freelancing market in the world. During the last fiscal year, Pakistani freelancers recorded export earnings of USD1.76 billion, while in July, the first month of the current fiscal year, Pakistani freelancers generated USD175 million in export earnings.

 

[Fatman17]

Pakistan Opens Customs-Bonded Oil Storage for Foreign Suppli - Profit by Pakistan Today

International suppliers to store crude oil, petrol, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, LPG and LNG in customs-bonded facilities for later domestic sale or re-export; proposed storage sites will be established at Port Qasim, KPT/Kemari, Hub, Gwadar, Mahmood Kot and Machike, Sheikhupura

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Under the framework, foreign suppliers will retain ownership of petroleum products while they remain in customs-bonded storage. Unlike the conventional cargo-by-cargo import model, suppliers will be able to position inventories in Pakistan without committing the products immediately for domestic consumption

 

[Fatman17]

Restore wheat support price at Rs4,702, says Pakistan Kissan Ittehad

Says that domestic wheat production has been severely undermined by ineffective policies over the past three years, resulting in a staggering Rs2,200bn loss for local farmers.

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To prevent a massive drain on foreign reserves and secure national food security, the PKI president urged the government to immediately restore the wheat support price mechanism to Rs4,702 per 40 kg.

Warns $1.2bn import bill looms amid shortfall of 3m tonnes

 

[Fatman17]

EDITORIAL: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s renewed push to strengthen agricultural research, provide quality seeds to smallholders and medium-scale farmers, and improve crop estimate systems could help address some of the sector’s long-standing weaknesses in farm productivity.

But good intentions alone are not enough. The real question is whether the government can turn his directives into a coherent policy and implement it effectively.

That would require reforming federal and provincial agriculture policies, markets and institutions that determine what farmers produce, what they pay for inputs and what they earn. Above all, an agricultural policy must be responsive to the needs of small and medium-sized farmers rather than powerful lobbies.

Read more: https://www.dawn.com/news/2025148

Once again "all talk and no action ". Narrative continues from the last 20+ years.