| December 12, 2001 | Wednesday | Ramazan 26, 1422 |
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Sri Lank’s new PM
Badr-II launched
THE European Commission has fulfilled half the promise it had made in mid-October by announcing on Monday wide-ranging duty concessions on Pakistani exports to the EU. The second half of the promise - relaxation in quota restrictions - is, however, still being discussed in the EU council of ministers. As clothing items represent 60 per cent of Pakistan’s overall textile exports to Europe, the new competitive edge, obtained owing to tariff concessions, would surely help increase the share of more profitable value-added Pakistani items on the list of textile goods export to the EU. However, many Central American nations already enjoy this concession in the EU markets. There is, therefore, only a limited scope for Pakistani exports to benefit from this concession. At best, perhaps, Pakistan would add about $200 million to its overall export earnings annually as a result of the elimination of the preferential duties on Pakistani garment exports to Europe and reduction in the duties on all other exports. However, by attaching highly stringent labour conditions to the concessions, the Europeans seem to be taking with one hand what they are giving away with the other. Every civilized society in the world is obliged to take proper care of its labour force. But to force the developing countries to adopt the same labour standards as practised in countries where the labour costs take up the largest share of the total cost of production in low-tech industries like the textiles is not only totally unfair but an absolutely impractical proposition.
Pakistan expects to earn an additional $300 million on an average annually by the time the quota system is completely eliminated in 2004, if the EU were to boost its quota for the import of Pakistani textiles and clothing by the promised 15 per cent on a one-off, across-the-board basis. But this concession is being held up because of opposition from Portugal and Spain as also because the Europeans feel that they would then need to extend the same concession to India as well. One only hopes that the EU makes up its mind quickly and turns the second half of its promise as well into a reality soon. Pakistan needs increased market access rather more urgently than aid. The US is still dragging its feet on its promise in this regard. The situation has become even more critical as most of the Christmas-related goods exported to the US have been detained by the US customs for one reason or the other, while Singapore has slapped unnecessary visa restrictions on Pakistani businessmen who go there routinely to book export orders. So, while welcoming anything concessional in the shape of hard cash and re-profiling of the debts, the country would very much like to see a major enhancement in its foreign trade. There would then be an all-round improvement in investment, employment and revenue collection; budgetary deficits would come under control, and the balance of payments position would improve considerably, restoring health to an economy that has been sick for a long lime.
SRI LANKANS have a habit of surprising their leaders by cross voting at a time when they are least expected to. This time it was President Chandrika Kumaratunga who was left with cold feet as the island-nation elected her arch rival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as prime minister last Wednesday. Bolstered by a comfortable majority in the new parliament, Wickremesinghe’s United National Party rode a wave of public support for its business-friendly and pro-talks agenda to resolve the 18-year old Tamil insurgency and to put Sri Lanka back on the road to economic recovery. This is in stark contrast to the position adopted by the president’s People’s Alliance, which wanted to step up military action against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The election was preceded by one of the bloodiest pre-election campaigns that left over 50 people dead and hundreds injured after the president prorogued parliament in July, fearing a vote of no-confidence against her party’s minority government. However, armed with a grudging number of powers under the 1978 constitution, President Kumaratunga remains firmly in charge as Sri Lanka’s head of state.
The task before Wickremesinghe’s new government is multifaceted: he has to make good on his promises of giving an upswing to the economy and initiating a meaningful dialogue with the Tamil separatists, as well as to take along other smaller factions such as the Marxist and Muslim parties. The Marxists control the trade unions, which have been demanding pay rises and improved working conditions at a time when business has not shown any growth. The economic growth rate this year stands at zero per cent, with many multinationals threatening to pull out if the workers’ unrest did not end. The Muslim minority, for its part, wants a separate district within the troubled Jaffna peninsula, where the political offshoots of the separatist Tamil Tigers hold sway. The saving grace is that Wickremesinghe is backed by the business community, and he has managed to build bridges across the political divide with the Tamil separatists, Marxists and Muslims, in that he wants to pick ministers from these groups to form a national government. What remains to be seen is how well he will be able to work around the now opposition People’s Alliance and its head, President Kumaratunga, who has shunned any attempts at sharing power in the last seven years.
THE successful launch of Badr-II, Pakistan’s second indigenously produced satellite, needs to be welcomed, for it shows the nation’s continued quest to advance in space technology. The satellite has been launched with help from the Russian space agency from its launch facility in Kazakhstan. A rocket carried Badr-II into space along with a Russian meteorological satellite. Weighing around seventy kilograms, Badr-II will, if everything goes well, have an operational life of two years. Orbiting at a height of around a thousand kilometres, it will pass over the country for between ten and fifteen minutes during each orbit. To some extent, having Badr-II in space will decrease Pakistan’s reliance on other nations for plotting its topography, natural resources and other physical characteristics. Such data can prove to be very useful, specially when formulating policies relating to land and water use, agriculture, and conservation of the environment and of natural resources. The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) has said that data gathered by Badr-II could also be used for defence purposes. This is reassuring, considering the fact that India is way ahead of us and is already in the run for sending its own spy satellite into space.
Technical aspects aside, what is also welcome about the launch is that Pakistan worked with Russia in a highly sensitive field like space technology. This might also have to do with the fact that Pakistan currently has no launch facilities of its own. Nevertheless such collaboration — where it serves the interests of both — needs to be widened and deepened. Suparco is also in the process of developing its satellite launch vehicle, and once that happens Pakistan might even be in a position to help other developing countries launch their satellites.