Despite regular claims by our economic managers, the reality is that Pakistan’s economic recovery remains adrift. Could it be that our turnaround endeavours, while laudable, end up missing focus on our core strengths and, as a result, the outcome becomes one step forward and two backwards. It would be pertinent to note here that almost all economic success stories of the last five decades, including China, have come about by capitalising on the respective economy’s core economic strengths, and once the basics were addressed, value additions and diversifications came organically. In fact, today the most successful global corporates have gone back to management structures that are product-driven rather than wider cluster-driven, meaning simply wanting to operate in areas where they feel they can be market leaders.

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For example, within a twelve-month stretch spanning parts of 2024 and 2025, five iconic American companies replaced their CEOs: Nike, Starbucks, Boeing, Intel, and Target. The business press noticed something beyond the usual turnaround narratives. Headlines spoke of companies that had “lost their way and focus.” In his latest research paper, John Iwata, former IBM executive and now an executive fellow at Yale, talks about companies that forget who they are and the need for them to re-find themselves. National economies, in many ways, are no different, and perhaps this is precisely the malaise the Pakistani economy seems to be suffering from as well: losing connection with its core identity and strengths. The result is an unprecedented erosion in agriculture and rapid deindustrialisation, both historically central to our economic model, which ensured not only sustainable levels of employment and poverty........

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