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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

19 Dec 20

Every partisan can have his view who won the debate, but the following facts are indisputable:
- No previous govt has willingly come forward to have a threadbare debate with the opposition in open forum on a burning issue of the day
- Only PTI govt has made inquiry reports public

- All facts and figures are made available for complete scrutiny so that public can arrive at their own judgement
- Only in this govt every contract and every additional loan is minutely examined, and govt ministers willing to respond rather than obfuscate

- Level of public interest/scrutiny economic issues means there’s almost real time assessment taking place of govt decision unlike, for example, in the signing of 20yr IPP or 15yr LNG contracts that happened virtually in the dark

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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

30 Oct 20

The government would do itself a favour by explaining to the people that food commodity prices are driven by international prices. They’ve moved up by as much 25-50% for the different food commodities in the last few months.

Today international wheat price is ranges between rs2100-2300 per maund whereas the support price paid to local wheat prices is 1350 per maund. Why should local farmers sell at 20-30% lower prices than what he can get by selling across the border in Afghanistan.

Even if he does so, the middle man will buy up the stock and smuggle it across. There’s no point moralising about farmers receiving subsidies and that they should sell at a lower rate than what they get elsewhere. Even if they comply other intermediaries won’t.

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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

15 Aug 20

The agreement (MoU) between Government & Independent Power Producer is a great achievement & should lead to reduction in power costs and also circular debt. It remains to be seen by how much since there are further negotiations to take place. Highlight of the MoU are:

- Projects will convert their contracts to Take and Pay basis, when Competitive Trading Arrangement is implemented and becomes fully operational, as per the terms defined in the license of each IPP. This will hopefully address the issue of IPPs that not utilised still being paid

- ROE on IPP for foreign investors (as registered with SBP), will be 12% in $, but for local investors 17% in PKR without dollar indexation. Equity value will be fixed in PKR at a $ conversion rate of Rs145. Rupee depreciation will result in reduced hike hikes impact than earlier

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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

29 Jul 20

@ImranKhanPTI

Now that the Covid-19 curve has been flattened, for the moment at least, there’s the comical search for the X-factor by govt’s detractors. Whether it’s juju or exceptionality of Pakistani genes, the one thing they certainly can’t credit is @ImranKhanPTI strategy of smart lockdown

The experts of all matters in the universe state will table thumping certainty that the following had nothing to do with it:
- 50 different interventions.
- 2300 smart lockdowns covering 47mn people, all data driven.
- TTQ of millions who came into contact with positive cases

And of course we’re suddenly genetically very different to Indians where the daily cases are almost 50,000 & growing at a rate of 20% every week. Also if the cases start going up again then we must not look for any X-factor but immediately put the responsibility on the government

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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

24 Jun 20

@WorldBank

"Pakistan’s textiles & apparel exports, at $10.6bn in 2006, grew to only 12.8bn by 2015, a growth rate of 2.1%..Bangladesh’s textiles&apparel exports grew from $9.9bn in 2006 to $28.3bn in 2015, a growth rate of 12.3%"~ @WorldBank 'Modernizing trade in Pakistan: A Policy Roadmap'

"Because of its slow growth in the industry, Pakistan is losing ground to its competitors. In 2006, Pakistan was exporting more textiles and apparel than Bangladesh and Vietnam. By 2015, both Bangladesh and Vietnam had surpassed Pakistan."

"The difference between Pakistan and its competitors is magnified when focusing on the apparel industry specifically. Bangladesh’s apparel exports grew from $8.25bn in 2006 to $26.53bn in 2015, an annual growth rate of nearly 14 %."

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Javed Hassan

@javedhassan

13 Jun 20

The point scoring by opposition and resistance about total debt increasing is relatively easily dismissed by the simple fact that for the first nine months there was a fiscal surplus - the first time in several years. Therefore the increase in debt was not due fiscal imprudence

But rather having to service the debt book, which was a legacy of previous governments. Now this was further exacerbated by interest rates increasing to12.5-13%. That increase was necessitated by inflationary pressures as a result of depreciation. The reason for that is obvious!

It's also worth recognising that the nominal value of debt also increased because of the depreciation to the extent of external borrowings. But fundamentally if the government had been borrowing to fund its expenditures it would reflect in primary deficit

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