The business community is generally preoccupied with resolving their day-to-day problems. But there were a few exceptions where its prominent members accurate forecasted things to come and suggested remedial measures to manage brewing crises even during what is generally described as the development decade of the 1960s.

Our present fate is to move from crisis to crisis, wrote former President Ayub Khan in his book Friends and Masters, published towards the fag end of his long authoritarian rule. In that context, one can pick just two critical approaches — ‘trade not aid’ and ‘think globally and act locally’ — frequently voiced by a leading industrialist to put the economy on the right course.

And now, after a lapse of so much time, one can witness his forecast coming true going by what an eminent Iran-American economist Rana Foroohar said: “What is the right balance between global and local is being rethought. The world is beginning to reset”.

It is ‘glocalisation’, facilitating local access to the local economy and not ‘globalisation’, that will help Pakistan’s economy, wrote the late Mr Yusuf H. Shirazi, Chairman Atlas Group of Companies, in his book ‘Safeguarding Sovereignty’. The book is a collection of selected revised newspaper articles and media interviews based on his life experience.

International assistance should focus on efforts to increase local participation of labour and investment for self-reliance

In the US, the world’s most developed market, interesting developments are taking place. A senior economist of Pakistani origin is part of the staff team tasked by a leading US company to do field research on how American firms with entrepreneurial skills, innovative ways and the latest technologies survive and prosper in these hard times. (Of course, one can assume, without crutches). What is the way forward? This is a deviation from the company’s dependence on the findings of academic research.

Mr Shirazi was convinced that Pakistan has to first rely on its own resources and manpower. We need local ownership and local participation. In that sense, he says, the country has a viable economy. Local access to our economy will create jobs and provide the masses with bread, clothing and shelter, making ordinary citizens self-reliant. This, believed Mr Shirazi, could be achieved through investment, production and exports.

The situation in the country is altogether different. For example, local authorities have hired foreign firms to lift garbage from Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana — a job that locals previously did in the labour-abundant country.

And to quote a similar view as voiced by our local industrialist, a new age of economic localisation will reunite place and prosperity, ending the last half century of globalisation. The philosophy that underpinned globalisation has run its course. Peace-based economics and a wave of technological innovations make it possible to keep operations, investment and wealth closer to home, where ever that may be, with the pendulum of history swinging back, i.e. international cooperation based on sovereign equality.

This is how Rana Foroohar, Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst, sees the future unfolding and pens it in her book Home Coming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World. And one may conclude that all this will lead to international cooperation based on sovereign equality. The book explores the challenges and possibilities of the new era and how it can usher in an equitable and prosperous future.

‘Investing in Humanity: Enabling a new Global Order’ was this year’s theme of the annual international summit conference held this month in Saudi Arabia. Inequalities are the main hurdle in sustainable development, acknowledges Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal. However, there has been no meaningful change in policy direction in the country.

For example, Sindh’s information minister has hinted that local government (LG) law may be amended through an ordinance instead of calling the provincial assembly. Analysts say all stakeholders must be on board for such vital legislation because it concerns all the province’s inhabitants. For over a decade, they argue, there has been enough experimentation with the LG system, which all has been a waste of time. The situation in other provinces is essentially no different for different reasons, including cuts in LGs’ allocation of funds.

But the question of empowering local governments has become a national issue supported by local leaders, eminent economists, civil society activists and courts.

However, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is taking some initiatives to reduce heavy foreign dependence. He has sought China’s help for Pakistan to become self-reliant in disaster management. Foreign assistance has yet to lead to a path of self-reliance.

A Chinese delegation led by Emergency Commanding Officer Xu Zianbiao will provide technical assistance for short-, medium- and long-term projects such as infrastructure to predict floods, reduce their impact, and rehabilitate affected people.

Pakistan also wants a Chinese company involved in a power plant project at Gwadar to shift its location and use local Thar coal instead of costlier imported coal. Efforts have been made to conserve energy and reduce fuel imports.

On the agenda of the prime minister’s visit to Beijing, expected in November, is a proposed tripartite cooperation agreement between China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to set up an oil refinery in Gwadar. It is part of his plan to make the multi-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project more productive by turning it into a business-to-business mode.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 31st, 2022