Entrepreneurship | A game-changer for Pakistan

Osama Shaukat
Entrepreneurship is game changer for Pakistan personal opinion by Osama Malik

Entrepreneurship is a game-changer for Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that faced many challenges since its independence. It has gone through the security challenges from the very start that never let it get stronger economically. It has to spend a lot of its budget on security. In the war of terror alone, Pakistan lost billions of dollars to the economy. Conflict with India is also a problem for Pakistan, it also affects its economy plus the rage between both countries reaches the war every two decades. They fought several wars during the past 72 years.

Recently a Kashmir Issue has also brought both countries on the war front which is not good for the economy as investors feel unsafe to invest in a country that is on the verge of war. Right now Pakistan is going through its worst economic downfall. Unemployment and Inflation are rising quite rapidly. And the core reason behind this economic problem is corruption. Corruption is the root cause that just brought problems to Pakistan and its economy, its youth, and its institutions. Top leaders to the working class of Pakistan, many of them found corrupt in the past and even today.

The state seems to be on a weaker side when it comes to the prevention of corruption. They tried to capture the corrupt elites but failed to recover much out of them. But we can hope for a better future as in fact we started with the bigger culprits of corruption and bringing the ladder downward. It will have an impact on the other people who do the same, and change does take time. Right now Pakistan is trying to gain economic strength because the security of every nation is linked with its economic prosperity and economic strength.

To cope up with the world’s advanced technology, not only in defence but in the corporate sector and infrastructure development, economic strength is of utmost importance. An increase in population is also a problem we should have to look forward to. Like the more, you grow economically and along with that your population is also growing, there is no way a country can achieve stability. China first controlled its population increase and then they went for economic prosperity and poverty alleviation. And they achieved both targets in record time in the history of mankind.

Entrepreneurship; A Game Changer

Economic prosperity and stability of a country are dependent on the successful business units they have. In this context entrepreneur’s mindset and entrepreneurship has a key role. A real-world example is the USA. In the USA almost 9% of their young generation go for their business venture & Entrepreneurship instead of the regular jobs after the completion of studies. And America is currently a world superpower with the strongest economy of 19 Trillion Dollars. Their entrepreneurial firms almost run the whole world, without using their product and services no developing country can prosper.

So promoting entrepreneurship is a lot more important for any developing or under-developed nation for growth in this world. Another recent example is China a second strongest economy in the world i.e. 12 Trillion Dollars, and they achieved all that in just 3-4 decades because they promoted their local business firms and entrepreneurial activities. Despite communism in China, they still gave opportunities to the people for business, and Ali Baba, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. are some notable examples. They helped China to grow this faster.

Now in the case of Pakistan, along with its Geo-Strategic location and rich natural resources, it can use its human resource for economic growth just as China did. They made their overpopulation an opportunity rather than a threat. Pakistan should do the same. It has almost 69% of the youth population and amongst them almost 50% are females. Pakistan can use its youth population in developing entrepreneurial activities.

A federal government does launch a scheme of the Youth Entrepreneurs, they can apply for the loan from the government, maximum 50 lac Rupees, and should have to use that amount for an entrepreneurial venture. They have to give their business plan to be selected for this scheme. This will help the economy and generate employment for the youth. But the government needs to do much more than that. The laws for the ease of doing business should be relaxing and should not be complex because such schemes had been introduced in past governments but none of them proved to be effective because of corruption and the local laws.

In Pakistan, as per the law to start your business and registering the firm, an entrepreneur has to go through a lot of steps, even he has to take approval starting from local district officers to the top level. The system is so complex even the Chinese government had complaints regarding that. So as our government made a CPEC authority to deal with the businesses coming under CPEC, it also has to make a Business Authority of Pakistan, so that all the steps and registration should have to be done through a single authority. This will encourage people to start their own business without hurdles and it will also be welcoming for foreign investors. A huge number of people in Pakistan don’t even know that how they can start the business, the process of registration and other legal formalities, this initiative of separate business authority will also make it easy for people to understand the process.

Pakistan’s majority of the female population prefers to stay at home which also affects the economy. Females should be encouraged to take part in entrepreneurial activities because women are also proved to be a successful businesswoman. Even in Pakistan, a lot of successful private businesses are being run by females but this number should have to be increased.

The government is well aware of that fact as it has included 25% of quota for women in their new Business Loan Scheme. Females and families should also realize this fact and encourage society to go for entrepreneurship. Pakistan needs a generation who can create jobs rather than seeking a job. We have to get rid of the dilemma of going for government jobs only. This is the dream of almost every graduate in Pakistan. This should change now as our percentage of people who even try to launch their business venture is less than 1% and it is alarming. We can never grow with this number of entrepreneurs.

As I quoted some examples of the top economies of the world, the only backbone of their economic growth is the successful global entrepreneurial firms they have. The youth of Pakistan should engage themselves in entrepreneurial ventures along with the help of the government. Then the time of our economic stability is not so far.