Thread by @baba_taahir

Pakistan Trade Imbalance and How Data can act as Solution:

In 2018, Pakistan’s total trade volume amounts to $84 billion that is the total sum of imports and exports crossing the country’s borders. Only roughly $23 billion of that is exports.

Pakistan’s neighbours are doing much when compared with. If we add up the total value of the exports of all countries in the world, Pak’s share has declined over time, from 0.16% in 2003 to 0.12//% in 2018. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s share has increased from 0.09% in 2003 to 0.24%.

Why is Pakistan’s trade balance is still negative?

Before Finding the answer, let have a look on the graph. Reason would be obvious. While other countries have dozens of categories of exports, Pakistan only has a few Items (old standard, Conventional, average quality produces).

Reason of Decline.

Economic Complexity(EC)
Pakistan’s EC Index ranking has gone from 54 in 1980 to 94 out of 126 in 2018.Indicator measures how diverse export base is as well as how common the goods country exports are. Pak is exporting the same things in 2018 as it was in 2014

No Market (منڈ ی) for Export Exist in Pakistan:

If a new Japani business want to export mango from Pakistani market, where did he can find the market and market players? Do we have a mechanism to provide interanion Consumer a market to shop and buy product of his own choice?

Before approaching to solution, we need to understand and evaluate why some businesses in same industry do better than others-why one export industry is doing better then another? To Answer this --- we need firm-level data and all such data already being captured at various level

"Solution"

1. Government should open up its firm-level data to researchers and the public to evaluate and identify the potential constraints in productivity, innovation and technology adoption.

How data will help: This data will help identify the high-performing sectors and

industries and hence would eventually allow policymakers/business to identify the underlying constraints that inhibit widespread growth and innovation. Further, data analysis will allow right incentives to divert resources away from inefficient Sector towards efficient ones.

Data as tool to Innovation:

For Increasing domestic efficiency, evidence suggests that innovation is spurring average productivity globally and firms in Pakistan can achieve much more with the same resources by innovating in the right dimensions, industries and sectors.

Example:Soccer balls produced in Sialkot declined in past few years.. Analysis of data shown that reason of decline was slow adopting of cost cutting tech. Action: New technology reduced material costs by 6.9% and a incentive scheme increased chances of technology adoption by 32%

Solution:
2. One window Export Market for potential Customer.
Setting-up, consolidating the potential export player of Pakistan at one place will make it easier for Global customer to connect , interact and find suitable partner and products at single location. It ll also creat

a Competitive environment b/w market participants which will push them to come up with more innovative ideas to produce better quality products at less cost.

Conclusion: We don't need to invent, we just need to use tons of existing/available data to create value out of it

The graphs and facts used in this thread can be assessed
Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD)
John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Thttps://epod.cid.harvard.edu