With foreign exchange reserves dwindling, Pakistan faces its worse balance of payments crisis in peacetime
accustomed to unreliable utilities. Even in affluent neighbourhoods of Karachi and Lahore, residents install diesel generators for power cuts and spare water tanks for when the taps run dry. Yet the events of January 23rd were still shocking. A surge in voltage at a power station in southern Sindh province led to almost the entire country of 230m people losing power for most of the day. Factories, hospitals and mobile-phone networks shut down in many areas.
Many heavily-indebted emerging markets have faced similar problems over the past year, related to post-pandemic supply glitches and the war in Ukraine. Pakistan, which imports much of its food and fuel, looks a lot like Sri Lanka last spring, before it defaulted on its debt and its president was chased from the country by angry protesters. Yet Pakistan is uniquely troubling. It is the world’s fifth biggest country by population, perennially unstable, beset by extremists and nuclear-armed.
The forex shortage, in part caused by efforts to prop up the rupee, is causing additional damage. Import restrictions imposed to save dollars for essential items like food and fuel have hit industries reliant on imported inputs. Output in large-scale manufacturing, including cars, chemicals and textiles, fell by 5.5% in November 2022 compared with the year before. The World Bank predictswill grow by 2% this year, half what it forecast last June.
The floods and job losses are thought to have pitched between 8.4m and 9.1m more people into poverty, mostly in the countryside. In Dadu, an especially inundated district of Sindh, thousands are still languishing in tents. “Only those who had savings or outside help can afford to fix their houses”, says Rasheed Jamali, an aid worker. Foreign donors pledged $9bn in relief in January; less than $800m of a previous set of pledges had at that time arrived.
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