Search

Pakistan’s Tariff Bias: Anti-Export or Anti-Consumer

Date : December 17, 2020 at 6:00 PM
Moderator: Dr. Nadeem ul Haq (Vice Chancellor PIDE)
Panelists :

Mr. Ahmed Fasih, Regional Trade & Policy Advisor, PREIA, DIA,
Mr. Ehsan Malik, Chief Executive Officer, Pakistan Business Council,
Dr. Safdar Sohail, Executive Director, Sustainable Capacity Analytics & Social Protection Resource Centre

Speaker : Dr. Gonzalo Varela, Senior Economist, World Bank

Import tariffs have long been used for protecting an economy’s domestic industries from external competition. More recently, the emergence of global value chains as an integration platform into the global marketplace has stressed the importance of reducing import tariffs on parts and components that cross international borders several times, before they get assembled into a final good. A stream of literature has emerged on how reducing tariffs on intermediates and raw materials can allow firms to leverage technologies embedded in foreign products as an means of productivity growth.