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The Pakistan Paper Association has warned that due to the country’s paper crisis, books will not be open to students in the new academic year beginning in August 2022. While global inflation is the root cause of the paper crisis, the current paper crisis in Pakistan is also the result of poor government policies and the monopoly of the local paper industries.
A joint press conference was held by the Pakistan Paper Merchant Association, the Pakistan Association of Printing Graphic Art Industry (PAPGAI), and other organizations associated with the paper industry, as well as the country’s leading economist, Dr. Qaiser Bengali. During the press conference, they alerted that due to the paper crisis, books would not be available to students for the start of the new academic year in August.
The country is experiencing a severe paper crisis, with paper prices skyrocketing. Paper has become so pricey and its price is increasing day by day, and publishers are unable to determine the price of books, according to a local media outlet in Pakistan.
The textbook boards of Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be unable to print textbooks as a result.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani columnist has asked the country’s “incompetent and failed rulers” how they plan to solve the country’s economic problems at a time when the country is entombed in a vicious cycle of taking loans to pay back previous loans.
“We have seen the regulations of Ayub Khan (Former President of Pakistan), Yahiya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq,” Ayaz Amir wrote for Pakistan’s local media outlet Dunya Daily. We’ve seen dictatorial governments, and they all had one thing in common: they took loans to solve problems, then took more loans to pay back the previous loan.” He claims that the never-ending cycle continues, and that Pakistan has reached a point where no one is willing to lend the country any more money. “We could not solve our country’s economic problems when the citizenry was 11 crores during Zia ul Haq’s regime.”
“How are our inept and failed rulers going to improve the economic growth when the population has doubled to 22 crores?” he asked in his column, according to local media.
Meanwhile, China has struck a hard bargain with Pakistan in terms of repaying its loans and other investment opportunities in the country. Pakistan paid around USD 150 million in interest to China for using a USD 4.5 billion Chinese trade loan – related to fiscal year 2021-2022. Pakistan paid USD 120 million in interest on USD 3 billion in loans during the fiscal year 2019-2020.
China has been very strict in recouping funds from Pakistan. Take, for example, Pakistan’s energy sector, where Chinese investors have continued to insist on resolving issues with existing project funders in order to attract new investment.
