KARACHI: Mian Zahid Hussain, President of the Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, has called for an urgent overhaul of the nation’s logistics strategy to revitalize its trade potential. Speaking to business leaders, Hussain highlighted that despite Pakistan’s strategic location and extensive coastline, its logistics sector remains underdeveloped, significantly impacting the country’s economic performance.

Pakistan’s logistics inefficiencies are starkly reflected in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, where its ranking plunged from 68 in 2016 to 122 in 2018. This decline places Pakistan well behind regional counterparts such as Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh. Hussain identified weaknesses in customs efficiency, infrastructure quality, and the absence of a comprehensive national strategy as primary hurdles.

Hussain noted that these inefficiencies contribute to increased production costs by up to 30% and are estimated to cost the national economy 4-6% of GDP annually. To address these challenges, he proposed a series of reforms, including the swift implementation of the Pakistan Land Port Authority Act of 2025, which aims to streamline trade facilitation through a “one-window” solution.

Further recommendations include leveraging technology like the Faceless Customs Assessment system to expedite procedures, modernizing ports, enhancing the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation, and investing in a national cold chain network to bolster exports. The emphasis was placed on strengthening regulatory frameworks, infrastructure, and technology to support these initiatives.

Hussain concluded by underscoring the necessity of a cohesive national strategy to transform logistics from a bottleneck into a driving force for sustainable, export-led growth and increased global competitiveness in Pakistan’s trade policy.