PML-N scorecard

The PML-N government has completed its full five-year term for the first time in the history of party. Earlier, PPP too had completed its full tenure of five years. These two successful tenures can be described as an uninterrupted decade of governance of the state by the elected governments.
PML-N, on the eve of completion of its tenure on 31 May, widely publicized its achievements in economy.
The score cards of PMLN's 5 year's performance is presented in the table:
The GDP recorded an impressive growth largely driven by CPEC, Real Estate, retail business and some segments of industry like cement.
The FDI of $ 2.24 billion , though is higher than that of 2013, is miserably low for a nation which has world's one of the largest growing middle classes. In 2007, Pakistan achieved an FDI of $ 8 billion which should have rightly been the benchmark for PML-N.
PML-N did add around 7,000 additional power to the national grid, but it could only evacuate on average around 1500 MW on account of transmission network limitations and circular debt. Power load shedding therefore still persists, though its duration has reduced. Circular debt has swelled from Rs 480 billion to Rs 579 billion. The government attempted to address the circular debt issue through financial means. This was a mistake. The issue is characterized by a slew of problems such as technical and non-technical line losses, pilferage, unmanageable receivables, gaps in the fuel supply chain, non-transparent conduct of some independent power producers. The PML-N government never made any serious effort to fully appreciate the criticality of this challenge; it is therefore bequeathing for the next government a huge problem.
Exports failed to pick up. Here too the government attempted to solve the issue through financial incentives and duty concessions .The grim reality is that Pakistan is no longer in a position to compete in global markets. As per World Bank's yearly rankings, Pakistan's cost and ease of doing business ranking has slid down to 147 from its ranking of 116 in 2013. The government made no significant steps to work on improving Pakistan ranking which is an extremely challenging task involving multiple entities to work towards this objective.
Where the PMLN is leaving a serious gap with series consequences are loss making public sector enterprises (PSEs) whose accumulated losses have escalated from Rs 0.4 trillion to Rs 1.2 trillion and the external debts has soared from $ 56 billion to $ 91 billion.
While taking into consideration the pluses and minuses of PMLN governance over its five-year tenure, its scorecard is tilted towards pluses.
(The writer is former President of Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce & Industry)

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                                    2012-13    2017-18      Score

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GDP (%)                                3.68       5.79          +

FE reserves (BUSD)                    11.02      16.23          +

Remittances (BUSD)                    13.92      20.00          +

Inflation (%)                          7.36       3.77          +

FDI (BUSD)                             1.45       2.24          +

FBR Revenue (BPKR)                     1946       2935          +

PSE Index (points)                   21,006     42,536          +

Installed power (MW)                 21,500     28,700          +

Power demand (BU)                       6.3        9.3          +

Power evacuation (MW)                15,000     16,500          +

Circular debt ((BPKR)                   480        579          -

Exports (BUSD)                           25         23          -

Public sector losses                    0.4        1.2          -

(Trillion PKR)

External Debt (BUSD)                     56         91          -

Ease of Doing Business                  116        147          -

(WB global ranking)

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