'Cautiously delusional’

Fixing the energy crisis was the single-biggest promise the PML-N made before the 2013 elections. Four years down the line, the crisis still haunts the lives of citizens and businesses alike. The party’s ‘experienced team’ promises the crisis will be fixed by this date and that, and surely by 2018 elections. But the collective voice of the biggest foreign investors in Pakistan believes not in that promise.

In its latest wave of business confidence survey (released last week), the OICCI had this to say on the subject: “Energy crises remains one of the biggest concern among business entities which they feel will have a more negative effect in future. Moreover, business entities once again have confirmed that they do not foresee the government to be able to solve the energy issues before elections in 2018. The pessimism on energy is more pronounced in wave 14 than before.” Wave 14 survey was conducted last month.

Considering that the survey reflects the views of participants who roughly represent 80 percent of Pakistan’s GDP across manufacturing, services, and retail trade sectors, these findings aren’t exactly the kind of verdict the PML-N’s experienced team has been rooting for.

Whether the PML-N thinks that the minds behind overseas investors sitting in the oldest business chamber in South Asia are misinformed or have misanalysed the government’s ‘publicly available’ energy plans; or whether it thinks that they are sitting in the camp of opposition parties, PM Nawaz should send his energy team to the OICCI, and hold a combined press conference in Karachi to answer this question.

In addition to energy, OICCI’s survey report highlights that government policies on taxation, including poor inter-provincial coordination on tax affairs, and “insufficient dialogue on operational issues” by government authorities, are some of the worst impediments to doing business in Pakistan.

On the whole, the latest wave of OICCI’s overall business confidence survey shows that sentiments are positive, but the positivity has fallen for the second time in a row in the last twelve months. The confidence scores for OICCI members show a similar trend, although OICCI members seem to be more positive than other participants of the survey.

Commenting on the results, the chamber’s current president Khalid Mansoor said “OICCI members are confident that economic managers of the country will analyse key messages coming out of the latest comprehensive sentiments of the business community to take proactive corrective measures to reverse the trend.” This column wonders what is the basis of this confidence in economic managers.

Like Mansoor, the chamber’s former president Shahab Rizvi made the following comment in November 2016 wave of the survey: “We believe that quick, decisive, and visible action from the government in these areas is needed to arrest potential decline in future surveys,” he said referring to “perceived and real concerns on taxation, inconsistency of policies, and management of security and energy issues.”

Surely there hasn’t been “quick, decisive, and visible action” on the part of government on most of these issues, leading to further erosion of sentiments in OICCI’s recent wave. Therefore, in its Nov/Dec 2017 survey, the OICCI should also measure whether in the opinion of its members the current economic managers of the country have listened to the voice of business community (including OICCI members), and independent economists in the past, and what’s the likelihood that they will listen in the future.

The findings from those survey questions will better reflect the confidence of OICCI’s members on economic managers. Unless perhaps the OICCI members are the perennially optimist lot – corporate yogis who have achieved the nirvana of optimism, which is somewhat reflected in the fact that OICCI members have been consistently scoring high (compared to non-OICCI members) in the last seven years (see graph). Or perhaps OICCI members are better groomed in giving diplomatic responses.

This reminds us of an interaction with the CEO of one of the leading MNCs in Pakistan a few years ago. After expressing a long heart-felt criticism and hopelessness, he said “please don’t quote this at all.” Flabbergasted, we asked what we should quote about his views on the economy then; he said, “I am cautiously optimistic.” To balance journalistic ethics and intellectual honesty, we quoted neither. But next time somebody is going to use this clichéd expression; we might daringly read it as “cautiously delusional.”