According to economists, the Pakistani entrepreneurs lack marketing techniques to promote their products in overseas markets. They still use old methods of production and could not update their products to come up with changing trends and compete their peers in the region. The small entrepreneurs have no access to the European market and they rely on the forces of local demand and supply, but there are others who can afford to visit European and other countries and have access to the potential buyers. But they are reluctant to modernize their production units and invest in the marketing departments or they also lack capacity and courage to meet the challenges of new business trends in foreign lands or take any initiative to promote their businesses. May be they prefer to keep themselves within limits as they don’t want to take any risk to launch a new venture. The businessmen associated with textile sector are one them who failed to change their methods of production and methods of marketing. As a result, their competitors in India and Bangladesh have taken long strides and the textile sector of the two countries have shown considerable progress during the last one decade.
The business community in Pakistan totally relies on the government and wants to get every facility without struggle. The general trend in the world business community is that the governments do their part of the job and entrepreneurs do their part and they support each other for the cause of business. But business environment in this country is marred by mistrust and corruption. The businessmen with resources also look toward the government for help and take lion share of facilities and packages. The small entrepreneurs are left on the mercy of mafias and they have to fight for their survival. The bureaucracy in Bangladesh and India is not different from Pakistan, but the business community worked in a way to increase their exports despite challenges. It is time the business community should work on self-help basis in Pakistan and minimize its dependence on the government aid. The government should also update its business policies to facilitate the business community and activates its missions abroad to do some homework and overtime to create demand for the Pakistani products. The government officials thumped their chests when the country achieved European Union’s GSP Plus status, but euphoria soon evaporated when this scheme could not be fully utilized for one reason or the other. The government should now make arrangements to implement Rs 180 billion package announced by the former prime minister to boost exports.
