{"id":135593,"date":"2025-05-27T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T09:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/135593\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T09:44:08","slug":"world-bank-warns-pakistans-rising-tariffs-stifling-exports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/135593\/","title":{"rendered":"World Bank warns Pakistan&#8217;s rising tariffs stifling exports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/606431_38118_updates.jpg\" alt=\"A participant stands near a logo of World Bank at the International Monetary Fund - World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. \u2014 Reuters\" width=\"700\" height=\"400\" class=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A participant stands near a logo of World Bank at the International Monetary Fund &#8211; World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Export share falls to just over 10%.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>High tariffs hurting productivity and wages<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>US duties may cost $1.4 billion annually.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>KARACHI: Pakistan\u2019s declining export performance, despite years of tariff protection, is threatening its competitiveness and long-term economic prospects, the World Bank has warned in its latest policy assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Exports have shrunk to just over 10% of GDP in 2024, down from more than 15% in the 1990s \u2014 one of the lowest shares in the region and among middle-income economies. <\/p>\n<p>In the report titled \u2018From Inward to Outward: Pakistan\u2019s Shift Towards Export-led Growth\u2019, the World Bank said the slide reflects worsening constraints on businesses, compounded by recent policy shifts towards higher tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/606431_3115653_updates.jpg\" alt=\"World Bank warns Pakistans rising tariffs stifling exports\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPakistan\u2019s tariff structure \u2014 characterised by high average protection rates, cascading import duties, and ad hoc exemptions \u2014 has become a barrier to export-led growth,\u201d the report said, noting that tariff rates have risen steadily since reaching their lowest levels in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s goods exports rose 6.25% year-on-year to $26.86 billion in the first 10 months of FY25, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>The World Bank\u2019s assessment highlighted structural weaknesses in Pakistan\u2019s trade policy and recommended transferring tariff-setting authority from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to the National Tariff Board. <\/p>\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/606431_5514783_updates.jpg\" alt=\"World Bank warns Pakistans rising tariffs stifling exports\" width=\"700\" height=\"412\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It also proposed establishing a National Regulatory Delivery Office to streamline policy implementation and reduce red tape.<\/p>\n<p>While the World Bank welcomed the launch of Uraan Pakistan \u2014 the government\u2019s five-year plan for reforms and economic growth \u2014 in December 2024, it cautioned that tariff reforms must be accompanied by broader structural changes to make the economy more competitive.<\/p>\n<p>The report also pointed to a challenging business climate marked by a misaligned exchange rate regime, high energy costs, regulatory complexity and limited access to credit. <\/p>\n<p>It warned that high import duties on raw materials and intermediate goods have further eroded firm productivity, sales and wages.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan\u2019s exports face another major threat of now on-hold reciprocal tariffs of up to 29% announced by US President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n<p>The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), a think tank affiliated with the Planning Commission, has warned that the reciprocal tariff on Pakistan might cause a decline in exports to the US in the range of 20-25% translating into an annual loss of $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A participant stands near a logo of World Bank at the International Monetary Fund &#8211; World Bank Annual&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[3670,51,1700,6026,16,15,16741,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-135593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-pakistan","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-warns","15":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114579155532471304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}