BHURBAN - The illegal trade is a menace that is on the rise across Pakistan and needs to be dealt with seriously as it leads to tax evasion, criminal activities and discourages legitimate businesses. Often, this happens with authorities looking the other way rather than punishing the culprits.
To shed light on these problems and discuss their solutions, the Positive Media Communications (PMC) hosted a two-day media workshop titled “Fake news, illegal trade and pandemic” in collaboration with the Stop Illegal Trade. Concluding ceremony of the workshop was held here on Sunday.
Interesting questions were raised by the audience on the nature of fake news, training of media personnel to identify it and how to stop incentivizing.
Earlier, Salman Masood, Editor The Nation and correspondent for The New York Times, while inaugurating the workshop highlighted the consequences and threats posed by fake news particularly for society and the media industry in general.
He spoke at length about the importance of training of journalists to distinguish between real news and fake news and how the media industry can put a chokehold on it.
Independent macroeconomist Ammar Habib Khan, while speaking about the various challenges that illegal trade poses to Pakistan, delved deep into the economic aspects of illegal trade.
He said that the size of the informal economy in Pakistan has swelled to an estimated 56 percent of the country’s GDP. He highlighted that enforcement measures on the other hand were too little adding that it was surprising to note how law enforcement agencies had been able to seize only 5 percent of the amount of goods smuggled into Pakistan. He further said that effective border management was the key to deal a blow to the shadow economy and increase tax revenues for Pakistan.
Khan shared some alarming statistics of the market share of smuggled goods in Pakistan and highlighted that 74 percent of mobile phones and 20 percent of cigarettes available in the country are smuggled.
The speaker disclosed that currently Pakistan has one of the highest consumption of illicit cigarettes in Asia. It has left behind countries such as Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore and others when it comes to the volume of illicit cigarettes consumed per annum.
Khan stressed the need for providing ease of business to investors instead of creating impediments and complications in their paths. People in Pakistan choose to conduct their businesses in cash as it is easier to do so and avoid the hassles that come with a digital method of doing business.
While talking about media coverage of illegal trade and how it can be improved, Jamshed Baghwan, KP Bureau Chief of a private TV channel, quoted the interesting details of how businessmen who wanted to export fruits from Pakistan to Afghanistan were allegedly harassed by authorities which discourages investment and legitimate businesses.
The participants agreed when Mr Baghwan stressed on the need for more oversight on the Pak-Afghanistan border, which the speaker said was porous and largely ineffective in containing smuggling. On the media’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, Baghwan stressed the need for more monitoring on illegal trade and the loss of revenue to the country and asking the right questions about progress on bringing illicit businesses under the tax net.
Ahmad Waleed, an experienced broadcast journalist and Controller News Channel 24, stressed on careful reporting during the pandemic while adopting coronavirus SOPs.
CEO Positive Media Omar Quraishi appreciated the participants’ interest and questions during the event.