Abstract
The study analyses the degree of integration of Pakistan’s economy in global trade and financial flows. Pakistan’s integration into the global economy gained momentum in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it adopted more open and liberal policies as part of stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes negotiated with the IMF and World Bank. The paper presents an overview of Pakistan’s economy in the before and after period, it will specifically examine the trade performance from the 1980s onwards to see the progress made towards the integration of the Pakistani economy into the world economy. It will look into the opportunities that Pakistan is likely to gain in a more globalised world, with special focus on the textile and clothing sector and the potential growth in this sector after the abolition of the Multi Fibre Arrangement (MFA) in 2005. New challenges that may emerge in a more open trading environment will also be discussed.
1. Introduction
Globalisation broadly defined as the free movement of goods, services, people and information across national boundaries has become a widely debated topic in recent years. Developing countries embrace Globalisation for a variety of reasons. Firstly, foreign investment provides more jobs, new production technologies, infrastructure improvements and a source of capital for local entrepreneurs. Domestic businesses gain access to both cheaper inputs and much larger markets for their products. The removal of trade barriers expands the range of choices available to consumers and places downward pressure on prices thereby raising the real value of workers’ earnings. Globalisation and liberalisation present many new opportunities for developing countries such as Pakistan, viz. higher growth through export expansion and improvements in their balance of payments situation. A World Bank study (Dollar and Kraay 2001)