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Beyond tariff cuts
PAKISTAN cannot build a competitive industry by protecting it indefinitely. Nor can reducing protection, by itself, turn domestic manufacturers into exporters. Tariffs shape investment decisions, but competitiveness also depends on energy, technology, scale, supply chains, market access, and security. A credible industrial strategy must address them together. Unconditional protection raises prices, blunts incentives to innovate, and rewards selling to a captive home market. Consumers finance inefficiency, and capital chases protected returns rather than export opportunities. Where there is no credible prospect of competitiveness, protection merely postpones adjustment at public expense. The National Tariff Policy 2025-30 , therefore, points broadly in the right direction. Fewer tariff slabs, cheaper imported inputs, and phased elimination of additional customs and regulatory duties can lower costs and reduce the bias against exports. But these are instruments of competitiveness, not substitutes for the conditions that make exports possible. The essential complement is a measurable programme to cut the costs the state imposes on prod