In Pakistan, old hopefuls jostle to turn around struggling economy
Al Jazeera
Pakistani voters head to the polls on Thursday amid a deep-seated economic crisis. Inflation is hovering at 30 percent, close to 40 percent of people live below the poverty line, and the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio has climbed to 72 percent. Pakistan’s new government will have to contend with these and an ageing public infrastructure.
“We have power outages every day for two hours,” says Muhammad Waqas, a janitor from Islamabad. “In the summer, when it’s hot, you sit idly and suffer.”
As with other state-owned firms, the inability of successive governments to invest in Pakistan’s National Transmission and Despatch Company has left it prone to failure.
More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and energy supply challenges dampened Pakistan’s growth prospects and constrained efforts to diversify its export base away from low-value-added products – such as cotton and rice – to higher-value goods.
In late 2022, meanwhile, monsoon floods displaced eight million people and cost the country $30bn in damage. The loss of cotton crops ravaged the country’s textile industry, a key source of exports. In all likelihood, Pakistan’s growth rate fell into negative territory in 2023.
