This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed 'Budget-making in a pandemic' carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, M Ziauddin, seems to have made an interesting argument by saying that "Pakistan's economy which was already in the intensive care unit (ICU), has since February this year gone into a tailspin deepening further the ongoing recession induced earlier by an IMF-driven austerity programme launched in April last year."

In my view, however, the budget-making process is hamstrung by two key factors. Firstly, it is the absence of informed assessments about how the coronavirus challenge will play out through the fiscal year 2020-21. Secondly, woefully lowered exports and home remittances will surely create a profoundly difficult situation for the country to successfully foot the import bills despite a historic decline in oil prices and deferment of repayments of external debts. Printing of more and more currency notes will only add to inflationary pressures and further depreciation of local currency. You can always print PKR in whatever quantities you want, but you cannot print Euro or US dollar to meet the challenges of external sector.