According to latest State Bank Statistics, the public debt would increase by more than Rs.4 trillion during 2018-19 under the present PTI government as against the average rate of Rs.2 trillion per annum under the preceding PML(N) government. The dollar price as of 18 April 2019 is Rs. 141.65 and we should also not forget that it was this in this government that had brought the dollar to a whopping Rs. 143.5 in the interbank market, now many will argue that appreciation of dollar rate happens worldwide and the present government has no part to play in it. They are absolutely right, a government has no role to play in it but like many other countries, they should have a plan to control its appreciation in the interbank market. When PTI's government was campaigning for the Elections, we have all heard Imran Khan promising the nation how their economic plan will boost the economy of Pakistan. Of course, that has not happened because it is practically not possible because for an economy who is in debt of billions of dollars need economic reforms to stabilize the economy which had not happened. Though the present government had resisted really well earlier by not taking a loan from the IMF and some other resources, they are about to get a loan from IMF in the coming months.
First of all, we all need to understand how dollar price is appreciated, it happens when there is more demand than supply in the market. That's exactly what has happened to us, as we have no way to bring those dollars in our market because our exports are nothing compared to imports. So when we are importing something from another country, we are giving from those dollars that are in our circuit; that's not a problem as long as we are bringing in if not more than at least the amount we had given away for our imports. That's how the economy of a country works. Well in our case, we are already in huge debts and there is no way for us to get out of this trap, reason is simple, we have inadequate imports and we have no resources to be independent of things that we need, consider automobiles, for instance, many of our automobiles are CBU units that means that they are imported from the outside world and not being manufactured in the country while there are few CKD (only assembled in the country) units, 4.3% of our imports are of automobiles as of 2018. Now what Imran Khan has done as he held his seat in the office, he increases duty in imported cars and also imposed taxes on locally manufactured cars, the result was what we're all aware of. Imposing taxes are not at all wrong but a proper collection of taxes are much important than imposing new taxes because it brings a burden on some people alone. It was just an example of the miserable condition of our automobile industry and other sectors aren't much different.
Now let's take about the positives here, CPEC is a great future prospect and according to the update 75% of the total employees working in the CPEC projects are Pakistanis, now that will create more jobs and it is a huge gain for us. According to data from the Pakistan Planning Commission, the early harvest project of the CPEC created 38,000 jobs, including more than 75% are local employment, and the corridor project is expected to continue to create 500,000 jobs in Pakistan in the next five to seven years, this will surely help to boost our economy. So CPEC is a great future prospect for us and it is a sure sign of hope for us.
No doubt our GDP has increased but our population has increased as well, so does inflation. So if we want to keep a balance between these things, we have to be independent as much as possible and our independence depends on an economic plan that will guide us; what we wanna do and achieve in the coming years. If we continue to rely on our exports, then there is little hope for our economy to rise!