KARACHI: The direct and indirect cost incurred by Pakistan economy due to war in Afghanistan and terrorism amounted to $123.13 billion equivalent to Rs10,373.93 billion during the last 16 years.
According to Economic Survey 2016/2017, despite the conflict and continuing instability in Afghanistan that has been an impediment to regional peace and development, Pakistan has achieved progressive and significant improvement in the country’s overall security landscape in recent years.
This has been accomplished largely due to successful counterterrorism efforts of the government under the framework of the comprehensive National Action Plan, backed by an extensive and highly effective counterterrorism operation Zarb-e-Azb by the armed forces, and actions by other security and law enforcement agencies and intelligence-based operations across the country.
After successful completion of Zarb-e- Azb, a country-wide operation Radd-ul-Fassad has been launched for eliminating any residual or latent threats.
Due to the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan has faced the most serious consequences – from political to security, socio-economic and environmental – over the decades. From hosting millions of refugees to being a major victim of terrorism, the cumulative impact has been enormous, with adverse overall growth rate in all major sectors of the economy.
Normal economic and trading activities were disrupted, resulting in higher costs of doing business including cost of insurance and significant delays in meeting the export orders around the globe. As a result, Pakistani products gradually lost their market share to their competitors.
Economic growth could not pick up as planned during the last decade. Pakistan continues to be a target of terrorism, including foreign-sponsored terrorism from its immediate neighbourhood. A substantial portion of precious national resources, both men and material, had to be diverted to address the security challenges and to repair the damaged infrastructure during the last many years.
In addition to economic losses, cross-border terrorism in Pakistan has inflicted untold human suffering resulting from indiscriminate and brutal terrorist attacks against the civilian population.
In this backdrop, success in counter-terrorism has played a critical role in creating a conducive economic environment whose results have now started appearing in terms of growth across different segments of the economy. As a result of these efforts, the total losses incurred due to incidents of terrorism are declining.
