Ahmad Rashid Malik’s scientific contributions

Underneath the first executive stroke exercised by President Donald Trump, the US has withdrawn the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Trump has his own logic of resurrecting the US economy, creating more jobs, protecting industries, arresting currency devaluation by the Asian countries and banning the corrupt practices of dumping cheap imports from the Asian trading partners, notably by China. However, the Asian partners think otherwise. They were demanding for the great opportunities offered by the US market and consumers. For them, the US withdrawal is a severe setback to the robust economic ties with the US and for the multilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the Asia-Pacific region. As the TPP was considered to jointly target the Chinese economy by the 12 partners. On the contrary, the US withdrawal, furnished with an unprecedented leverage to China to continuously grow in the 21st century and to overcome its economic slowdown while further expanding its economy.

Trade volume between Pakistan and China largely remained insignificant. It did not constitute a viable economic partnership between the two countries until the first decade of the present century. Bilateral trade could further strengthen Pakistan-China relationship. China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in effect from July 2007, introduced a new dimension in the promotion of the bilateral trade. As Pakistan could not devise a dynamic trading policy toward China, this resulted in a huge trade deficit with China after 1984. Pakistani industry and exporters should adopt new measures to increase exports to China and to bring about a reasonable equality in mutual trading relations.