Key takeaways
- Low reserves, about US$14.5 billion at end-2025, signal sovereign risk.
- Infrastructure, energy, bureaucracy and governance gaps compound tax increases.
- Some exits reflect global restructuring, not only Pakistan-specific problems.
- Departing MNCs take technology, standards and export links with them.
- Reforms should be sequenced, starting with predictability and profit repatriation.
In this Minute Mirror column (November 2025), Dr. Ghulam Mohey-ud-din examines the departure of multinational companies from Pakistan and argues that the usual explanations, higher taxes and regulation, describe symptoms rather than causes.
The argument
The deeper problem is macroeconomic fragility. The column cites foreign-exchange reserves of about US$14.5 billion at the end of 2025, low for an economy of Pakistan’s size and a signal of external vulnerability. Debt dependency and sovereign risk deter investors more than any single policy irritant.
Those risks compound with infrastructure gaps, unstable energy supply, bureaucratic inefficiency and weak governance. Each disadvantage might be tolerable alone; together they make the investment environment hostile. Exits are consequences of deterioration, and the underlying problems remain after firms leave.
The author urges care in diagnosis. Some departures reflect global corporate restructuring, supply-chain realignment or geopolitics rather than Pakistan-specific failures, so sector-level analysis is needed. Standard prescriptions such as spending cuts, IMF renegotiation and regulatory overhaul also run into political limits on defence, pensions and public wages.
The costs of exit are real. Multinationals bring technology transfer, quality benchmarks, export links and anchor demand for local suppliers, and domestic firms often lack the capacity to fill the gap.
What needs to change
- Firm- and sector-level case studies of each departure.
- Macroeconomic stabilisation paired with investment-climate reform.
- Sequenced reforms that start with macro predictability and guaranteed profit repatriation.
- Measures to strengthen domestic firms and benchmark reform against international competitors.