ISLAMABAD: Terrorism inflicted a colossal damage to the national kitty as Pakistan suffered a loss of $126 billion in the 17 years, according to Pakistan Economic Survey (PES) 2017-18.
The survey showed that Pakistan faced losses of $2.67 billion in the year 2001-02 when United States invaded Afghanistan with the year wise losses gradually increasing till 2009-10. PES indicated that terrorism dented Pakistan’s economy by $9.18 billion in 2008-09, $13.56 billion in 2009-10, $23.77 billion in 2010-11, $11.98 in 2011-12, $9.97 billion in 2012-13, $7.70 billion in 2013-14, $9.24 billion in 2014-15, $6.49 billion in 2015-16, $5.47 billion in 2016-17 and $2.07 billion in the first eight month of the ongoing fiscal year 2017-18. Moreover, Pakistan could not collect $3459.67 million tax due to terrorism in last two years, in addition, $383.93 million has been spent on infrastructure and $129.89 million paid to affectees of terrorism in the above mentioned period.
It is estimated that foreign investment up to $1234.40 million could not be attracted to Pakistan due to the war on terrorism and the subsequent restive situation in the country. Economic Survey indicates that war on terror cost the proceeds of privatization by $251.19 million and industrial output by $1043.90 million. In addition to this documents of Finance Ministry reveal that due to war on terror, Pakistan had to face $10 billion losses per year in trade. The decade of terrorism (2007-17) did not let the country’s export take off like some of the regional trade competitors. If Pakistan’s exports had grown at the pace of region’s average growth, its exports would have been around USD 42.7 billion; an increase of USD 22.2 billion over current exports. If Pakistan’s exports had grown at the pace of India’s average growth, its exports would have been around USD 31.83 billion – an increase of USD 11.3 billion over the current exports.
The economic survey 2017-18 mentioned that after facing protracted violence for more than a decade, Pakistan achieved progressive and significant improvement in the security landscape in recent years. Pakistan’s success in countering-terrorism has been acknowledged in the recent Global Terrorism Index Report 2017 published by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace. According to the report, Pakistan ranked 5th out of 163 countries with a score of 8.4 out of 10 on the Index, a marked improvement as it ranked 4th in 2007. Pakistan has shown improvement in its global terrorism index ranking with a decline in the terrorism incidences and the deaths related to terrorist activities.
This is the third consecutive year that Pakistan has witnessed fewer terrorists’ attacks and deaths. The success in counter-terrorism has played a critical role in creating a conducive economic environment whose results have started to appear in terms of growth across various sectors of the economy. As a result of these efforts, the total losses incurred, both fiscal as well as human has declined. During 2016-17, it declined by 15.7 percent over the corresponding period of last year while it further declined during July-February 2017-18 by 62.2 percent.