Pakistan’s economic challenge is not a lack of resources but a persistent failure to convert them into value. The country remains heavily reliant on exporting raw materials while importing finished goods, locking it into a structurally weak position in global trade. The result is predictable. Persistent deficits, fragile industry and limited job creation.

The solution lies in a decisive shift from a consumption led model to a production oriented economy anchored in manufacturing and value addition. Infrastructure investment is necessary but not sufficient. Roads, power and logistics only become economically meaningful when they are embedded within productive industrial ecosystems.

Experience elsewhere suggests what works. China’s industrial transformation was not driven by infrastructure alone but by sustained policy direction, export orientation, clustered industrial development and systematic investment in skills. The defining feature was consistency over........

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