China is an emerging economic power and it knows fault linein the way of development. It has longstanding territorial disputes with India and Vietnam, but it is cooperating with the same countries by giving priority to business and economy. China is economic giant but luckily or unluckily it has maintained stable relations with Pakistan. If the economy of the region is bad, the economy of the country will not be able to ward off its bad effects. So, China is establishing friendly relations even with apparent enemies such as India and Vietnam. It is a good lesson to learn for Pakistan.
Pakistan is also an emerging economic power in the region. But it has to establish friendly relations with hostile countries such as with India and Afghanistan. We cannot stave off bad effects of any trouble in the neighbouring country and the leadership of Pakistan should clearly understand it. The economy of the country is linked with the economy of the region and if the economy of the region is bad, no one can stabilize the economy of the country. The government has decided to set an ambitious export target of over $50 billion which is hard to achieve in the present circumstances when it is weighing options to send army troops to Yemen and keep up hostility with India. Pakistan has the potential to export goods worth $25 billion even to the country in the region such as India, China, Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh. India has substantially improved it exports by 33 percent and no one can stop Pakistan to achieve this target too. The government should give serious attention to business with India as a neighbour and not as military rival. Pakistan is not the name of a country alone, but an ideology and an ideology never dies. The Pakistani and Indian businessmen are eager to do business with each other but official rigmarole is a big hurdle in the way of bilateral trade. If China can repair its relations with India, then Pakistan should also improve its relations with the apparent enemy. Pakistan should learn from the Chinese experience as how it has improved its relations with India and now India is a big market of the Chinese products.
The large business groups in the country are in favour of improved trade relations with India, but both the countries will have to relax their customs duties and tariffs. The governments of both the countries should introduce an accessible visa regime to facilitate the traders.
