Inflation has reduced soft drink sales by 40%, a $10b/year market in Pakistan with Pepsi & Coke taking the lion's share of $8b. If the state can be an exclusive buyer of sugar from mills and tax more, maybe consumption can drop to $3b/year? Grandpa lived just fine on salty lassi.
Ever wondered how South Indians are better educated than the rest of us in South Asia? By 1984 Tamil Nadu's PTMGR Nutritious Meal Program took on the responsibility of providing one cooked meal to school children as well as uniforms and books. The bait was a meal for poor kids!
Pakistani residents can now woo capital without becoming a dual national or trying to fly to Dubai and London enough times to become a non-tax resident. A few good men building a new environment in Pakistan!
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#SBP
modernizes FX regulations to a) attract foreign investment in fintechs and startups thru holding companies; b) support exporters to establish presence abroad to promote Pakistani products; and c) allow residents to acquire sweat equity; and more:
Please, NO visa to travel to Pakistan. Global vacationers are looking for newer destinations. Scan eyes, fingers and give a tracking SIM at immigration to allay security fears. Even let a billion people from India come tour Pakistan and spend a few billion dollars a year.
Pakistan should negotiate $1m/household for Palestinians to relocate to Gwadar where Malik Riaz can help build Dubai style housing. The Israelis can afford it, else ask their American friends to print $1 trillion. Life changing for us and the Palestinians
Jazz has been instrumental in providing us continued support for bandwidth and telecom integrations with our call center as people worked remotely during the lock down, so a big shout out them.
Imagine an airport terminal on the beach, where travelers can swim, explore mud volcanoes, drink marijuana infused Bhang and get a head massage while they transit between continents. PIA has landing rights to all the world's airports - they can be the next Emirates or Turkish Air
Tech CEOs should be fussing about the product every day, not wasting time in meetings and doing finance and PowerPoints like bankers and consultants.
Elon Musk nails it here:
Bosnia has more tourism in a day than Pakistan has in a year. Why? Because you don't need a visa to get here if you're European, a neighbor or have a US visa. Stop the hurdle of visas into Pakistan. The world will come to explore.
Petrol is 106 INR in Mumbai = 395 PKR.
Our public has been living on subsidies for too long. Hard decisions mean get petrol to be priced where the region prices it. Default on the IPP contracts. Stem imports on palm oil and lentils.
Exports as a % of GDP need to be > 20% for a country to be developing. If a billion people can move from 2.5% to 22% in 50 years as is India's example, it's entirely possible to double this ratio for a quarter of a billion Pakistanis
There's $700m going out through hundi from all the businessmen in this country every month.
If you have cash, and there's no capital gains return in real estate, where do you park your cash in Pakistan?
White money you can put into the bank, but hundi is the only route for cash
Distributors and small businesses can now call one Bykea to deliver to upto 20 drop off points in one go, and also bring back cash collected by using the app or calling 0307-1234567
@AsifAli09889311
I guess what needs to be solved is first off tariffs on imports that solve for price. Then it's about yield. Too many startups trying to solve farm to market which isn't a problem frankly. It's yield that is low in Pakistan.
@MAwais_Arshad
The Palestinian Authority never supported Pakistan on Kashmir, they supported India. This is an issue about land and inheritance. Everything can be solved
@FarooqTirmizi
Thanks for sharing Farooq. Let me scope this out a tad more. Historically there was a criteria for being profitable for 3 years to be able to list. Secondly, Pakistan's biggest IPO from Interloop raised $33m, which may be too small if we continue to grow.
@monispk
Monis, while digitizing long tail retailers helps those SMEs we have to figure out how to make them manufacturers of goods or services not traders alone as we need exports not higher consumption
@AbdulRehman0292
Half million leaving will create jobs for the other 249.5 million that need jobs. In fact I think 150m people from Pakistan should emigrate. It will give rural towns the ability to showcase their Malalas who probably bring more hustle than the Sharmeen Chinnoys
@Huk06
Exactly. Frankly democracy has failed in Pakistan. When the Mughals gave a territory to an overlord, the mandate was generating income. In Pakistan the mandate seems to be generating funds from central, not the other way around
@AmanNasirX
Well, the article is written by someone trying to defend the billions poured into the domestic market with little to show. Frontier geographies have limited dividend upside other than cheap labor.
@monispk
In 2024 I'll try to figure out how to bring logistics costs down for goods to be couriered out of Pakistan. Though I think services is where the bulk of the opportunity lies
@aamir_ibrahim01
@MoitOfficial
@umarsaif
Allow Telco credit to be used as a parallel currency where data and calling are taxed only at consumption and like Mpesa early days people can pay each other in mobile credit. Hundreds of millions have a wallet today.
@RayDalio
Ray - unfortunately the link to the principle's app "is not available in..." some countries, so perhaps your Play Store team needs to open it up. I'm in Pakistan.
@kunalb11
If the future is cards in emerging geographies right? NFC could be device based but higher amounts would still require a password. Don't disagree, but China proved otherwise.
@AbdulRehman0292
Agree. Petrol prices need to be at par with Mumbai which means they need to rise by another Rs. 100 or so - something the masses do not understand as they've loved under subsidies for so long