The Islamabad Policy Institute is of opinion that tense relations with India would continue to consume much of Pakistan’s strategic and diplomatic bandwidth. Chances of limited conflict between India and Pakistan would remain high, a report published by the Institute warned. “There are indications that the US is inclined to extend its Indo-Pacific strategy beyond India to cover Pakistan."

NEW DELHI: A leading Pakistan-based think-tank Islamabad Policy Institute has admitted that Pakistan’s external environment will remain challenging throughout 2020 which will have serious implications for its economy, security and internal stability.

The Institute is of opinion that tense relations with India would continue to consume much of Pakistan’s strategic and diplomatic bandwidth. Chances of limited conflict between India and Pakistan would remain high, a report published by the Institute warned.

The report tilted, ‘Pakistan Outlook 2020: Politics, Economy & Security’, has reviewed current trends in Pakistan’s external environment, economy, political stability, and security and on the basis of that made short-term projections in these areas. The foreign policy aspect in the report has been analysed by former foreign secretary and ex-High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir, while the military dimension has been dealt with by former defence secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik. Economist Syed Hussain Haider evaluated the economic situation in the report.

Bashir is of opinion that US support for India “was in violation of all norms of civility, international norms and principles”. The biggest challenge in 2020 for Pakistan, he therefore believes, will be to manage the fallout from the US-India nexus.

The report further said that navigating China-US competition will test craft of Pakistani policy-makers in near term. This would, moreover, strain Pakistan-US ties while complicating regional environment from Pakistan’s perspective, according to the report.

About ties with the US, the report said, it is a near certainty that bilateral engagement will remain limited to the minimum agenda of Afghanistan for foreseeable future and transactional nature of the relationship will continue. The report claimed that developments in the Middle East as a defining challenge for Pakistan’s foreign policy.

“There are indications that the US is inclined to extend its Indo-Pacific strategy beyond India to cover Pakistan. The US critique of the CPEC raises justifiable concerns… Pakistan will have to redouble its efforts to convince the US that there is a wide convergence of interests between US, China and Pakistan and therefore the need to develop mutually beneficial cooperation between all three,” noted Bashir.

“Pakistan would have to pay greater attention to its relations with China. There is an increasing mismatch in bureaucratic capabilities of the two sides. To make optimum use of China's desire to help Pakistan's development the red tape will have to be cut and premium placed on delivery of projects and programs. The special relations with China should not be taken as given and require constant re-invigoration,” suggested Bashir.

On the economic front, the report projected that Pakistan’s GDP growth would remain close to 2.5 per cent because of slowdown in large scale manufacturing and agriculture sectors. Inflation would remain high hovering around 13pc. Increase in power tariffs and higher oil prices could, however, cause inflation to shoot beyond these estimates.