Pakistan suffers $123 billion in losses in war against terrorism

KARACHI: The war against terrorism continues to financially bleed Pakistan as the country had to spend $123.13 billion, equivalent to Rs 10.373 trillion, in direct and indirect cost due to incidents of terrorism in last 16 years, says Economic Survey of Pakistan 2016-17 issued on Thursday. However, due to improved security situation, the losses are gradually declining. During the fiscal year 2015-16, the expenditures declined by 29.8% while during July-March 2016-17, it declined by 40.2% which reflects the effectiveness of the efforts to eliminate terrorism and extremism from the country, the survey revealed. In fiscal year 2010-11, the country had to suffer highest ever losses of $ 23.77 billion which gradually declined to $3.88 billion in the current fiscal year till March 2017, according to the report. The report says that due to 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 in the shape of 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, according to the survey. 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, the report says. 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 the recent years. This has been accomplished largely due to successful counterterrorism efforts of the government under the framework of the 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. 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.