Pakistan points with pride to the resilience its economic reform programme has shown in the face of a number of major unanticipated ‘stress tests’.
Crude prices spiralling to $78 a barrel in a country that imports 80% of its oil requirements, the knock-on effect of the Asian meltdown, a devastating earthquake that left 73,000 dead, violent clashes between the army and tribesmen on the border with Afghanistan where Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are holed up, plus relentless US pressure on president Pervez Musharraf to root out the terrorists after 9/11, which in itself catapulted Pakistan into the role of a frontline state – all these shocks to the system have failed to put the brakes on an economy on course to achieve 7% growth this year.
