KARACHI: If the five-member panel of CEOs assembled at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) on Wednesday was a microcosm of the country’s post-Covid corporate sector, the key takeaway for the audience would be that money never stopped rolling in for big business even amid the worst global pandemic.

Notwithstanding the repetitive use of the word “challenging,” four of the five CEOs reported growing revenues in the last 12 months. People took more medicines, consumed more hygiene products, watched more TV and bought online designer clothes stitched by poor Afghan immigrant women. Only losers were hotel managers who had to rely on subsidised loans to avoid layoffs.

IBA executive director Dr S. Akbar Zaidi began the session by acknowledging that every forecast he made about the timing and scale of the coronavirus was wide off the mark.

He asked Khalid Mahmood, CEO of local drug-maker Getz Pharma, if the threat of the coronavirus had subsided. “We’re sitting on a time bomb,” he replied. “We’ve vaccinated only three per cent of the population so far. Herd immunity can’t be achieved at less than 60-70pc,” he said while hinting at the possibility of another wave.

In reply to a question about zero contribution by the local pharmaceutical industry to vaccine development, Mr Mahmood said the university curricula of chemistry and pharmacy in Pakistan were at least 50 years old. “We don’t have a manufacturing culture. We have a real estate culture.”

Geo News managing director Azhar Abbas said TV revenues grew 30pc in the last one year while the number of views on their official YouTube channels more than doubled over the same period. “The share of the top five TV channels in total ad revenue increased from 65pc to 80-85pc in just one year,” he said.

Fnk Asia creative director Huma Adnan said her company recorded its highest sales in 2020 and gave bonuses to its 600-plus employees. The company pressed the reset button and tried to reach more customers through digital channels, she said.

Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan CEO Kashan Hasan said the multinational ran its plants 24/7 to meet the sudden demand for products like Dettol. “Things have changed permanently after Covid-19,” he said, noting that a lot more people were practising good hygiene now. This is reflected in the drop of up to 80pc in global sales of some products meant for cold and flu.

Avari Hotels Ltd director Dinshaw B. Avari said other sectors of the economy would lift Karachi’s hotel industry when security-related crises hit hospitality businesses in the 1990s and 2000s. “It was different this time. Everything was closed,” he said, adding that the group restructured its reservation, sales and general administration departments in the wake of thin business volumes.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2021