Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Patron of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) Dr Moeed Yusuf on Wednesday said the country would have to ensure its economic security to safeguard long term strategic interests.
He was addressing the second iteration of the two-day Global Strategic Threat and Response (GSTAR) 2022, which opened here today under the auspices of the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS).
This year’s theme is Evolving Global Order: Challenges and Opportunities. Dr Moeed was the keynote speaker and expressed his views on ‘Geoeconomics: Driver of the Asian Century.’
Dr Moeed, who is the former national security adviser said, “The only way to secure our strategic interests in the next 20 years is through economic security as Pakistan’s hand on Kashmir will be the strongest if it comes at it after having some semblance of economic security rather than only looking at it through the security and strategic lens.”
He added that there were two things that Pakistan had to internalise. First to realise that the world was gradually moving towards economic nationalism where more restrictions, sanctions and coercive measures would be placed in the economic and financial spaces.
The only countries that would benefit and succeed would be those who were competitive in this environment, he said, adding, “the days of handouts are over and we must accept it as a good thing.”
Second, he said, if the nation had to make that change internally then there was a need to start three conversations immediately namely: the first is how to ensure continuity of policy of national priorities amid consensus of political and military leaderships; second, communication between public and private sector which was a broken relationship as there was no constructive dialogue in that regard, and the third most important was interaction between the security and economic intelligentsia for devising workable solutions.
The country was collecting some $60 billion per annum in lieu off non-debt raising revenue generated from foreign remittances and exports, whereas there was a need of an additional $30 billion to achieve independence in its foreign policy, Dr Moeed added.
He underlined that it could be achieved through working on export growth, foreign direct investment and a dedicated manpower export strategy to bring back more remittances onshore.
“Geoeconomics is the way forward as a subset of economic security, whereas it is a component to the whole as per the National Security Policy approved by the state of Pakistan,” Dr Moeed added.
The other panelists, including Head of China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University, Lativia Dr Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova, Associate Professor, McGill University, Canada Dr Karl J. Moore and Executive Dean, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, China Dr Wang Wen also discussed pressing issues pertaining to geoeconomics and the great power rivalry.
