Foreign policy of Pakistan and it’s economic importance

(Mohsin Shah, Loralai)

After election the very first press conference of Imran khan was worth of interest. The main points of his speech were, I would not show any kind of discrimination to my political opponents, I will start accountability from myself and my own ministers then after that i will bring all other culprits to the court and will start their accountability, in this way I have to stop corruption, I will donate PM house to any national institute to reside in it instead of using it as PM residency and the most important point of his press conference was foreign policy of Pakistan. According to Imran khan’s point of view foreign policy of Pakistan is a big challenge, he said that as China is our friend and we will try to strengthen our friendly relation more and more, with India we have to resolve all issues through dialogues and he further added that if they forward a single step of friendship then we will welcome their such act while forwarding two steps of friendship, We are having religious ties with Iran and we want to increase our trade volume and established good relation with them, Afghanistan is the most victimized nation of war and terror since the invasion of Soviet Union till today and Pakistan is well-wisher of durable peace and stability in Afghanistan. This speech is really appreciable and the most of the people are appreciating these points of Imran khan. In these all points the very important is to be focused and applied is foreign policy. Today the world is known as a global village in this world there are round about 195 countries and these all countries are dependent on each other, a single example of closed economy is not available to us in this world, in the literature of economics the trade among countries is known as trade openness or trade liberalization. Trade openness has a very important role in the growth of an economy. In the field of international trade rich literature is available to us on trade openness. Several economic researcher have shown that trade openness is positively related with the economic growth. In short i would like to say that trade openness is one of important factor for the growth of an economy. High GDP growth high per capita income of Western countries is a good example of free trade and liberalization. Here in the case of Pakistan as we know Pakistan has very inimical relations with India from cricket ground to the floor of United Nations; Iran has reservations regarding the presence of Lashakar Jhangvi which is known as anti-Shiite militant group, so Pakistan has some sectarian issues with Iran. The most important neighbor of Pakistan is Afghanistan, Pakistan shares the longest border with Afghanistan which is known as Durand line and the length of that line is 2430 km. once Afghanistan was the largest market for the Pakistani products but with the passage of time trade volume shrinks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as people and countries keep options open similar was the case with Afghanistan they reduced the importation of Pakistani products and started trade with India through Chabahar port, the main reason of such reduction is the poor foreign policy of Pakistan. The Ex-president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai made more than 20 visits to Pakistan for the construction of good relation and cooperation against war and terror, but did not have any satisfactory answer at the last he stopped even visiting to Pakistan. Now in the case of Dr. Ashraf Ghani he also made a very friendly visit to Pakistan and he is also the believer of good relation in general and trade openness in particular. Ashraf Ghani believes in good state to state relation, the main theme of all speeches of President Ashraf Ghani is that Pakistan should consider Taliban as state-actor instead of considering them non state-actor and stop providing them with safe havens inside the Pakistani boundaries. Here in Pakistan the mindset of the people is totally different they will say Afghan people will die because of hunger if we stopped the exportation of Wheat, on other hand Afghanistan got 15000 tons of wheat from India through Chabahar port in a first shipment. We should not underestimate Afghan nation anymore, because they have got membership of WTO, Afghanistan is now a member of SAARC countries, TAPI gas pipeline is only possible through Afghanistan, Afghanistan cricket has got the title of test playing nation and they can cast their vote in favor of us and against us in ICC. CASA-1000 electricity project is also possible only through Afghanistan and we know that Pakistan is facing the shortage of electricity, and electricity is very important for industrial production. A very important project of Pakistani history is CEPEC to make this project more successful and to get access to central Asian countries its possible only through Afghanistan and this is the ultimate desire of China to explored her market to the central Asian countries. Now it’s a question mark for the new PM of Pakistan that how he will manipulate the foreign policy of Pakistan? They history shows that Imran khan is a big fan of Taliban some years ago the words to open an office for Taliban were dancing on his lips, similarly in his last government in KPK Darul Uloom Haqqania a well-known hub of the Haqqani network was granted with Rupees 277 million, on other hand Afghan government is having strong reservation on the presence of Haqqani network in Pakistan. Hence there is no country in the world to consider her-self as a self-sufficient country but all countries are interdependent. To take into consideration the reservation of Afghan government the new policy should show the way of Jail to the members of Haqqani network and Taliban instead of opening office for them. It’s needed now to manipulate foreign policy very sensibly and it’s more important issue to be focused instead of plantation of billions of trees and construction of Dams.

Mohsin Shah
About the Author: Mohsin Shah Read More Articles by Mohsin Shah: 3 Articles with 2760 views From Balochistan district Loralai..student of economics.. View More