Economy
Economic intelligence culture in France

The tensions underlying international exchange are indicative of the importance of cultural factors in economic warfare and oblige companies to be aware of the scientific progress if they intend to continue developing.
It took France a long time to define a culture of its own in the field of intelligence, and until the previous century, the French word renseignement had a negative connotation. The political elite considered this activity to be degrading and comparable to dirty police work.
The French government felt the need to launch certain reforms in both its external and internal services only after the First Gulf War, thanks also to constructive political consensus. This reform process focused on security that did not give due consideration to the decisive role that finance and markets have come to assume today in determining a people’s and a nation’s future, in an offensive context in which Western countries are not the only protagonists.
The main concerns of the French political elite regarded the use of renseignement in increasing the nation’s power and the ways that the offensive practices, typical of the information warfare, could be used while maintaining respect for the rules of democracy.
The management of conflicts linked to information has now become more complex due to the lack of strategies capable of managing and controlling virtual markets, the immaterial world represented by Internet, and the presence of new weapons capable of influencing public opinion.
With his interdisciplinary point of view, Christian Harbulot offers a reflection to understand the nature of the relations of power existing between national economies by juxtaposing strictly economic factors with historical, geopolitical, or cultural factors that affect economic warfare.
The reason why the elite were so unable to formulate a clear doctrine in this regard is perhaps due to previous historical factors. For three times in little less than a century – in 1815 with the succession of King Louis the 18th to Napoleon, in 1870, with the support of Bismarck against the Paris Commune, and in 1940, with the collaboration between Pétain and Nazi Germany – a national force interested in taking power created an alliance with a country that had defeated France on the military level. This contributed to the beginning of a certain wariness in public opinion of patriotism, which became devoid of substance when the enemy was presented as an indispensable ally. The Colonial Wars and the Cold War, with their ideological view of power as an act of domination and the substitution of national idealism by solidarity for struggling peoples, reduced the dimensions of patriotism to a minimum. The Cold War imposed ideology as the dominant key to the reading of events and the unity of the Western world assumed top priority against the threat from the Soviets, thus re-dimensioning the balance of power between the economies of the Western nations.
Only the arrival of General De Gaulle at the head of the fifth Republic produced an attempt at redefining the challenge posed by relations based on power in an economic perspective.
General De Gaulle tried to ensure a homogenous approach to the strategy of power and a better positioning of France on the international scene in 1958, but encountered great difficulty in having this approach accepted by civil society. He proposed an alternative to the Cold War based on an equilibrium between East and West and a conciliation between the world’s North and South, but this attempt at compromise failed, due to the lack of international support (the United States opposed this pursuit of strategic autonomy) and also the scarce interest shown by the French elite.
De Gaulle had a wide and articulated vision of France’s power also on the economic level, with its positive foreign trade balance; on the military level, with the advantages derived from the growth of its power; on the diplomatic level, with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The main concern in managing the territory was the modernization of the infrastructure to attract foreign investment.
This one-way vision did not permit the assessment of the intentions of these foreign investors or the drawing of a balance of failures or unfair business practices.
If the existence of the USSR served the purpose of uniting the Western world, its demise as an ideological empire and potential nemesis restored the previous relations of power between nations – in other words, the pursuit of supremacy over markets and resources and the creation of long-lasting relationships of dependence.
The evolution of the international situation continued demonstrating the exacerbation of the balance of economic power between the dominant nations on the international scene and in the areas contested for energy and mining resources.
After De Gaulle, no reflection on the growth of power ever completed the defensive approach conceived in the wake of the Second World War.
History shows, however, that up until the Restoration, the elite had had a clear perception of the contribution made by the economy in the growth of a nation’s power, the symbol of which was the model of development based on trade adopted by the United Kingdom. The clarity of French vision about the reality of the relationships between economic forces faded after 1815 when the resistance structure applied by Napoleon to contrast Britain’s commercial offensive was dismantled. London’s strategy of influence based on the propaganda of free trade bore fruits with the rise to power of the future Napoleon the 3rd,: he would sign the free trade agreement with England in 1860 despite opposition from French industrialists. Liberalism as the fundamental basis of the market economy came to replace a realistic vision of the balance of economic power for nearly a century afterwards.
This tendency for the conceptualization of economic warfare during peacetime has legitimized the numerous works created since 1997 by the Paris School of Economic War. Furthermore, by the end of 1988, the continuing lack of competence in the matter of France led Thierry Gaudin, Director of the Ministry of Research’s Prospects and Evaluation (CPE) and Jean-Pierre Quignaux, Secretary General of the Association for the Diffusion of Technological Information (ADITECH) to fund a study on economic warfare at a time when the international economic situation fully warranted its legitimacy.
Harbulot decided to publish Techniques offensives et guerre économique for the first time at the end of 1988, when all the international analyses existed in the conceptual shelter of the Berlin Wall, and talking about economic warfare seemed like an abuse of language. The Wall that had delayed the spread of new technology in the industrial fabric succeeded in disguising the history of certain peoples, the rootedness of their cultures and their national peculiarities for more than thirty years. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the binocular vision of our world was abruptly clouded over. Its geopolitics and the analysis of its economic clashes had to be reconsidered, and it is from this point of view that the retrospective assessment of Christian Harbulot assumes particular significance, with its emphasis on the need for a resumption of research in this field in order to evaluate the consequences of current events and permit a reading of the future sufficient to prevent certain events from occurring.
Harbulot urges to become aware of the threat: in the international market, with competition in every direction, no one can afford the luxury of fighting a war of reaction.
Yet even in France, Harbulot claims, a certain desire for non-aggressive competition still prevails that is certainly not favorable in terms of competitiveness or creating jobs, due also to the mostly verbal and improvised ways in which awareness of economic warfare is transmitted.
The globalization of exchange is changing the very nature of economic warfare. This new state of affairs gives intelligence culture an extraordinary strategic importance, even more so in light of the fact that information is a capital with a long-term return. In addition to being a production factor, it is also an offensive and dissuasive weapon, and the absence of information engineering has become a strategic problem at the level of SMI. Even if, as Harbulot explained, this weakness in regard to foreign competition is not necessarily synonymous with defeat, the French companies’ ability to take action remained insufficient for a long time.
The opening of national markets to foreign exchange has multiplied the difficulty in interpreting phenomena related to competitors and competitiveness. Faced with this revolution in the world market, the approach adopted by French companies remains one of merely “sailing by sight” that has no place in a dynamic national industrial policy.
Active economic aggression measures are a source of concern primarily for the strategic sectors of armament or atomic energy, whereas most other economic actors perceive this type of risk too passively.
Proposals for action in the Martre Report: the third way for French industrial policy
The expression “economic intelligence” officially entered the public debate on national competiveness together with the request for public intervention in regard between 1992 and 1994.
Merit must go to Jean-Louis Levet, Chief of the technological and industrial development service at the Plan’s General Commissariat since 1992 for the possibility to transform the thoughts of Harbulot and Baumard into an official Report. He was convinced on one hand of the need for a radical review of the relationship between the State and industry allowing to seize the new opportunities offered by technological evolution and globalization and on the other of the need for France to implement a new policy of offensive competition on three fronts: the use of natural resources; the use of new strategies for new forms of protectionism, and new ways for the State to intervene in the economy, all of which in the context of a concerted long-term strategy.
Harbulot and Baumard defined the issues to be addressed:
-reflections on the way to encourage economic intelligence at company level;
-the study of foreign economic intelligence systems;
-the development of written knowledge on economic intelligence;
-the development of educational content addressed to higher level university professors and the encouragement of the sharing of experiences between operators in the sector;
-lastly, the launching of a national reflection by public administrations utilizing governmental economic intelligence measures.
The collaboration between Harbulot and Baumard resulted in a joint effort in defining the major working areas for the Plan’s work group, with an objective of methodological nature, namely, uniting the disciplines of information engineering and political nature, or in other words, remedying the absence of a French economic intelligence structure.
Furthermore, the integration of Harbulot into the Plan’s various work groups enabled the reinforcement of ADITECH, which if up until then had been a mere association, since then became the ADIT (Technological Information Diffusion Agency) through Ministerial Decree in May, 1992, under the control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Aerospace and Research Ministry.
In the context of the Report, under the leadership of Henry Martre, a previous Chief Executive Officer for Armament, a work group specifically dedicated to questions of economic intelligence was set up: Baumard would work with Harbulot, the former on the comparative analysis of the world’s economic intelligence systems, the latter on national reflection on the issue.
The Report, which was published in 1994 in La Documentation Française, documented the degree to which French companies were obliged to operate under increasingly more complex circumstances and unpredictable dynamics that demanded the implementation of economic intelligence systems capable of further developing the strategic management of information, economic potential, and the number of jobs. The Report reiterated the meaning of economic intelligence intended as the coordinated research, processing and distribution of information, which can be useful to economic actors. These actions need to be conducted with guarantees of the protection necessary for the preservation of the nation’s business assets in the best conditions of quality, terms, and costs
It was through the work of Harbulot that the term and the definition of economic intelligence first appeared in an official document.
The Report clearly shows Harbulot’s vision: describing economic intelligence as an activity, not another type of information, involving the leading economic players, the companies.
The sources remain open, disproving the argument that paints economic intelligence as being involved in actions at the limits of legality.
However, it is precisely in regard to the greater availability of open sources that certain problems linked to economic intelligence emerge, such as the data distribution and protection: the circulation of data inside the company assumes fundamental importance whenever it transforms into a news leak, a constantly increasing risk in today’s ever more interconnected world.
The Report urged the State to take rapid action, and provided four embracing proposals:
-Involving companies in the practise of economic intelligence
-optimizing the flows of information between the public and private sectors;
-the creation of databases;
-getting the world of education and training involved.
The Report is permeated with the awareness that the problem is primarily political and that reasoning through the dictates of economic intelligence means changing our ways of perceiving the economy:
“Economic intelligence, together with the intention to impose an enlarged horizon of comprehension including companies, agencies and nations, provides a response to the urgent need of understanding the economy in other terms than those of mere and overly simplistic competitiveness. The question is political and requires the directors of the organizations above to enter into awareness because it regards a view of the economy that is not neutral”.
The Report issued by the group led by Henry Martre developed a summary of the thought of C. Harbulot and P. Baumard and provided keys to the comprehension of the world. It gave official form to a particular description of the relations between states on the international panorama in which the latter compete with no legal holds barred: the end justifies the means, and above all else, justifies the marshalling of actions in favour of the economy by intelligence services.
Conceived in terms of systems, networks of protagonists, intentions, and influence, and the coordination of decision-making centres, this view gains leverage from the fears derived from the invisibility of the threats. The central position of the State, the guarantor of national cohesion, is confirmed, as is the accent on the importance of unity and national cohesion, taking Japan and Sweden as examples. France can take control of its future only in a collective perspective, therefore must remedy the absence of interaction between the public and private sectors and overcome the usual priority given to maintaining a defensive position, with the objective of mobilizing the political class in regard to the importance of controlling and using information as an arm of domination.
Harbulot accuses both France to be unprepared for “economic warfare” and its policies to continue believing that a united Europe would provide a fertile field for French economic patriotism.
Harbulot defined economic patriotism as a three-dimensional value system, consisting of a cultural dimension that looks to the roots of the productive system; a dimension of conflict based on the relationships between the competing forces, and a temporal dimension influenced by the evolution of technological progress.
In order to promote the passage from an information culture that is closed and individual to one that is open and collective, he suggested creating an economic intelligence instrument through the concerted effort of public and private parties.
For Harbulot, economic intelligence is the systematic search and interpretation of the information available to everyone for the purpose of understanding the intentions and capabilities of the protagonists. Economic intelligence incorporates all the capacity of surveillance of the competitive environment (protection, vigilance, influence) and is distinguished from traditional intelligence by the nature of its field of application (open information), the nature of its actors (inserted in a collective information culture context), and its cultural specificities (each nation’s economy generates its own specific model of economic intelligence). This is represented by means of an economic intelligence diagram with three levels: the companies, the nation, and the world.
Overall, the Report would be judged faint-hearted in the measures it proposed, but more innovative in the vocabulary it employed, by officially introducing, in fact, both the new term “economic intelligence” and a different vision of reality, with the objective of generating a shift in mentality that justified the urgent implementation of a government action plan.
The proposed scope of the Report was the improvement of the offensive and defensive capacities of both national and corporate economic intelligence.
For the purpose of providing these recommendations with a follow-up, Martre promoted the creation of the Comité pour la Compétitivité et la Sécurité Economique (Economic Competitiveness and Security Committee) in 1995 with tasks similar to those of the US National Economic Council. The establishment of the CCSE significantly empowered French economic intelligence, which could already vaunt the fact of having promptly supplied the French government with news regarding the abandoning of the gold standard and the devaluation of the dollar received from US Treasury Department sources at the start of the Seventies. Furthermore, being characterized by close cooperation and trust between the public and private sectors, French economic intelligence also has a highly centralized structure that enables quick reaction times and a noteworthy ease in acquiring confidential information.
The system’s flexibility is achieved through the involvement in the “Economic intelligence structure” at territorial levels.
C. Harbulot was, together with P. Baumard, one of the protagonists between 1990 and 1992 of the construction of French economic intelligence, supported in his conviction that the international context would play a determinant role in the creation of new relationships between the State and businesses business. The discussions about security – promoted on the other side of the Atlantic – along with the political and economic uncertainties linked to the building process of the EU, had already prepared the ground for change.
Christian Harbulot and the creation of “Economic Intelligence”
Christian Harbulot was the first French author to address the topic of economic intelligence, presenting ideas that sparked the debate on its importance, given that the gaining of consciousness of the changes on the international scene could no longer be postponed, and recognizing the priority of economic questions over military ones.
The writings of C. Harbulot are authentic essays on the nature of economic confrontation written with the objective of convincing the political elite that an offensive use of information is a key factor in ensuring a Nation’s success.
Through comparative cultural analysis, Harbulot explained why certain peoples had mobilized and addressed the conflictual aspects of the market economy while others had not, and advanced his reasoning by which information capital is at the same time a leading factor in production but also an offensive weapon, in addition to being an arm of dissuasion.
Harbulot demonstrated how Japan’s economy was further ahead than America’s, and naturally France’s, precisely because it was capable of exploiting all the potential of intelligence activity in the sector. The United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, and Japan developed their own cultural model of market economy. In particular, Harbulot believed that Germany and Japan had gained remarkable economic leverage from their information and intelligence assets and had implemented more offensive and more effective economic policies because they were based on concerted strategies between private or public companies, between administrations and bank networks. Businesses in these two countries optimized their profitability by reducing the gap between information and intelligence, between open practices and closed practices, between what is available to the entire world and what instead must remain secret, moving from information – the mere awareness of information – to action, or rather information that can be useful for intelligence.
Harbulot often accused French political power of not giving the right amount of importance to “economic warfare”, thus remaining vulnerable to the risk of losing the control of its own economic information independence when faced with the massive growth of the Asian economies, all of which are – as opposed to those in the West – founded on unspoken rules of economic warfare.
For France, instead, the complete ignorance of the offensive potential of information engineering would be the cause of the scarce competitiveness of its companies.
Furthermore, the concept of “economic defence” – intended solely in a military perspective – is equally invalid.
This can be summarized by quoting Luttwak:
A nation’s cohesion is no longer born from the fear of a military threat but an economic threat instead, in a context in which the importance given to military alliances decreases and geo-economic priorities prevail instead.
In short, the elite in power in France still needed to be convinced of the existence and the importance of “economic warfare”.
The term “economic warfare” appeared too strong and radical right from the start, especially when used by authors like Bernard Esambert, who compared a nation’s loss of jobs and wealth and the lowering of its standard of living tout court to the disasters of war. Yet for this author, as well as Harbulot, the underlying idea is that a nation’s economic success is based on the concept of “culture” considered as a weapon that some nations use better than others: Japan’s economic dynamism can be explained by the strength of its cultural power, as might be Germany’s economic power as well. The French economy was playing a defensive game, instead.
However, the vocabulary suggested by Harbulot and terms regarding concepts like “combat culture”, “economic confrontation” and “economic warfare” were seen as scarcely convincing and overly radical. Thanks to the work conducted together with Philippe Baumard, the terms “confrontation” and “warfare” were replaced with that of “intelligence”. The use of the term intelligence derived from a combination of the French definitions of “surveillance” and “veille” and the Anglo-Saxon and Swedish definitions of the concept of intelligence intended as reasoning, planning, and ability to establish relations between various elements, or more simply, active information gathering activities. However, the term economic intelligence invokes an entirely new category in the field of economic geopolitics that expresses new needs for cooperation between the public and private sector.
P. Baumard proposed a methodology for the creation of a business intelligence system before constructing together with Harbulot a common reading of the stakes at risk linked to the new forms of competition based on offensive approaches to information. The ideas of Harbulot that were given most credence and which best describe the French situation are based on the use of subversive cultural elements in economic warfare.
The analyses of Philippe Baumard are very similar to those of Harbulot, especially concerning changes in terminology: from the concept of “surveillance of the environment”, “intelligence” came to signify the “intelligence of the environment” reflecting the prospect of greater tactical and strategic interaction of information.
Various other authors have considered the ambiguity of the term intelligence. The British give it a wider range of significance than the Americans did, for one thing. To make matters worse, difficulties in translation contribute to the confusion. The French word “intelligence”, for example, refers nearly exclusively to a human faculty, the intelligence of an individual, but not the activity of by which a government agency or a private company collects information. The French word renseignement is applied to the activities of national security agencies and not those of private companies or a particular social group: it expresses the product, the information that was collected in the environment, and makes tacit reference to the secret services.
Philippe Baumard focused his work on semantic problems and the difficulties of understanding and using the term in France in regard to the terms “veille” and “renseignment”. Baumard would attempt to renew the image of “vigilance” and “surveillance” in the perception of companies by exploiting the Anglo-Saxon concept of intelligence. However, his meeting with C. Harbulot – whom he even criticized for his use of the French term renseignment, declaring his preference for intelligence, as well as for the expression “intelligence économique” which he preferred to indicate with “economic confrontation” – would lead to the integration of the expression “intelligence économique” in the debate on the adaptation of public actions in regard to the problems posed by the management of information in 1992.
In this way, both style and terminology would become more moderate and closer to the vocabulary used by government administrations.
The progressive development of semantics for the topic contributed to a comprehension of the facts that was more appropriate to the changing times. The function of “vigilance” was very useful to the French contributors, and enabled the shift to the successive concept of economic intelligence intended as information assessed, interpreted, and put to use, also in terms of offence, by companies.
P. Baumard underlined the progress made by the United States in the topic in many ways: with an intense proliferation of texts, with an American economic intelligence community structured around the former members of intelligence services working together in the SCIP association, and with the renewed interest being taken by universities on this issue and journalists who make less confusion between “business intelligence” and spying. In France as well, the reasoning advanced by C. Harbulot proved to be decisive in the implementation of plans for action that would be submitted at the highest levels of government.
Economy
CBDC vs Cryptocurrency: The Future of Global Financial Order

In the rapidly evolving digital era, the global financial landscape is undergoing profound transformation. At the heart of the debate on the future of digital currency, two concepts dominate the discussion: Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and cryptocurrency. While both offer distinct visions for the future of global finance, there are strong indications that CBDCs hold greater potential to be adopted as a global standard.
A study by the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank, reveals that 130 countries, representing 98% of the global economy, are currently exploring digital versions of their currencies. Nearly half of these are in advanced stages of development, testing, or launch. All G20 nations, except Argentina, are in these advanced stages. Eleven countries, including some in the Caribbean and Nigeria, have launched their CBDCs. Meanwhile, China has tested its CBDC with 260 million people across 200 different scenarios. However, despite the global push for CBDCs, countries like Nigeria have seen disappointing adoption, while Senegal and Ecuador have halted their developments. Here are some fundamental reasons why CBDCs hold more promise than Cryptocurrencies in setting global financial standards:
1. Authority and Regulation
One of the primary advantages of CBDCs is the oversight and regulation by central banks. With a central authority controlling its circulation and use, CBDCs offer a higher level of trust and security for users and other stakeholders. CBDCs, supervised by central banks, are deemed safer due to a centralized authority ensuring consistent policy and regulation application. The ability to track and monitor transactions to prevent illegal activities, value stability, advanced security infrastructure, legal protection, and monetary control by central banks enhance user trust and security. Moreover, with central bank backing, CBDCs have backup and recovery mechanisms ensuring the digital currency’s integrity and availability.
2. Stability and Sustainability
Cryptocurrencies often face high price volatility, hindering their acceptance as a stable medium of exchange. In contrast, CBDCs, backed by central banks, are expected to offer more consistent value stability. Cryptocurrency price volatility is often driven by speculation, low liquidity, news and regulatory responses, and market immaturity. The nascent crypto market, dominated by retail investors, tends to move based on emotions like fear or greed rather than fundamental analysis. On the other hand, CBDCs, regulated by central banks, are designed for stability, expected to provide more consistent value stability than decentralized cryptocurrencies.
3. Financial System Integration
CBDCs, issued and overseen by central banks, offer easier integration into existing financial infrastructure. With full backing from central banks and existing legal and regulatory frameworks, CBDCs can seamlessly integrate into traditional banking and financial systems, facilitating cross-border transactions and exchanges with traditional currencies. For instance, Swift, a financial messaging service provider, is focusing on CBDC interoperability. They’ve initiated beta testing with several central banks and over 30 financial institutions to ensure new digital currencies operate smoothly alongside current fiat currencies. This aim seeks to address potential global fragmentation in CBDC development.
In contrast, cryptocurrencies, with their decentralized nature, might face challenges integrating with existing financial infrastructure due to the absence of a central authority and regulatory challenges, as well as acceptance by financial institutions.
4. Global Acceptance
As an official currency issued by central banks, CBDCs have the potential for widespread acceptance among nations, becoming an integral part of the global financial order. CBDCs, being official currencies issued by central banks, enjoy the trust and credibility of a nation’s monetary authority, facilitating their acceptance among the public. For instance, China’s Digital Yuan, backed by the People’s Bank of China, has seen extensive domestic acceptance. Moreover, CBDCs are designed to integrate with existing payment systems, as seen with the Sand Dollar project in the Bahamas that enables transactions via smartphones. On an international level, CBDCs can facilitate cross-border monetary cooperation, with countries like ASEAN members considering the interoperability of their CBDCs to ease trade and investment.
5. Transparency and Accountability
The ability to track CBDC transactions provides governments with an effective tool to enhance financial oversight and tax compliance. The transparency offered by CBDCs facilitates the identification of potentially unreported transactions and the detection of suspicious transaction patterns related to money laundering or terrorist financing. Additionally, with real-time monitoring, governments can promptly detect and respond to illegal activities, such as fraud, ensuring the integrity and security of their financial systems remain intact.
6. Promoting Financial Inclusion
CBDCs can play a pivotal role in promoting financial inclusion, providing access to financial services for those previously marginalized from traditional banking systems. CBDCs hold immense potential to boost financial inclusion, especially for those marginalized from traditional banking systems. With easy access via mobile devices and low transaction costs, CBDCs make financial services more accessible, especially in rural or remote areas.
Furthermore, the ease of account opening and cross-border transactions at more efficient costs supports migrant workers and those previously challenged by conventional banking services. For example, the Sand Dollar project in the Bahamas has showcased how CBDCs can expand access to financial services across the islands, allowing residents on remote islands to transact using just a mobile phone. Such initiatives demonstrate how CBDCs can be a crucial tool in promoting financial inclusion globally.
7. Monetary Policy Control
With CBDCs, central banks have an additional tool to implement monetary policy, allowing for more timely and effective interventions in the face of economic crises. CBDCs grant central banks enhanced capabilities to implement monetary policies. With better liquidity control and the ability to apply negative interest rates, central banks can respond more quickly and accurately to economic condition shifts.
Moreover, CBDCs allow for faster monetary policy transmission, such as direct stimulus provision to public accounts, and provide access to real-time transaction data. This capability is crucial as it allows for quicker responses to potential crises, maintaining economic and price stability. Additionally, swift and accurate actions from central banks in crisis situations can boost public trust in financial institutions and the government. Thus, CBDCs can be a vital tool in a central bank’s monetary policy toolkit, reinforcing their role in safeguarding a nation’s economic well-being.
While cryptocurrencies offer benefits like decentralization and privacy, the lack of consistent regulation and high volatility make them less ideal as a global financial standard. On the other hand, CBDCs, with the backing and regulation of central banks, promise a new era in a more stable, transparent, and inclusive global financial landscape.
In the context of modern diplomacy, the acceptance of CBDCs as a global standard can facilitate cross-border economic cooperation, strengthen bilateral and multilateral relationships, and advance sustainable development agendas. As a step towards a more integrated and harmonious future, CBDCs might be the key to transforming the global financial order.
Economy
IMF Conditions vs. Pakistan’s Economic Future

The solution to an ever-worsening economic mess is becoming more and more crucial to the tenuous stability of Pakistan. One of the most egregious spikes in inflationary pressure in history is being experienced by the country. Only war-torn Afghanistan’s economic situation is comparable to the current state of affairs, where Gross Domestic Product (GDP), per capita income, and GDP growth rates are at historic lows in comparison to their regional counterparts. Pakistan’s economic mess is caused by a complicated convergence of structural and intrinsic fault lines. The country is currently mired in the quagmire of a third consecutive year of weak GDP growth, ensnared in the grip of a protracted recession. The humiliating classification of Pakistan as a UN debt-distressed entity, which places it in the unenviable third place among a cohort of 40 nations similarly affected, exacerbates its financial predicament. Unavoidably, the nation’s fiscal allocation is set aside in a deplorable amount to pay off its onerous interest debt.
Currently, for the second half of September, the interim government has unrelentingly imposed record-high fuel prices, making the situation even worse for a populace already suffering from rife inflation. The newly elected caretaker government, led by Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakkar, was constrained by the International Monetary Fund’s strict conditions attached to the recently sanctioned $3 billion loan, and had no choice but to pass along the rising global oil prices to struggling Pakistani consumers in order to meet the lender’s short-term fiscal goals. This inflation index is ominously overshadowed by the effects of these price increases, both immediate and long-term. The central bank might be forced to raise its crucial policy rate in the following month if inflation turns out to be higher than expected.
As Pakistan finds itself ensnared in the vice grip of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) regime, it is an unspoken axiom of the business world that is strictly upheld. Pakistan, like many of its developing counterparts, teeters precariously on the edge of a debt quagmire, where the toll exacted manifests as spiraling inflation, a swift depreciation of the national currency, a shrinking production landscape, and the gradual erosion of social welfare disbursements, all at the dictate of international financial institutions. Whereas, according to United Nations report, Pakistan’s rapidly growing population will number 330 million people by 2050. While it might be tempting to believe that Pakistan’s troubles would stay within its borders, history warns against this. Currently, Pakistan is dealing with unemployment and inflation rates that are noticeably higher than those of many of its neighbors. A troubling picture of Pakistan’s development is painted by the Human Development Index (HDI), which places the country in the dismal 161st place out of 185 countries in 2022. The index measures a country’s progress across dimensions of health, education, and living standards. Pakistan essentially struggles with some of the worst human development in the world, ranking 25th overall.
Though, this bleak scenario has a complex history that includes poor economic governance, widespread corruption, and disproportionate funding for the defense industry, which feeds fiscal imbalances. Fostering investments in the education and professional expertise of the young cohort emerges as an imperative linchpin for generating prospects of a more sustainable economic trajectory in a demographic where half the population is still under the age of 22. Likewise, the prolonged political and economic unrest in Pakistan foreshadows a looming threat for the Indo-Pacific region. Particularly in its interactions with India and its function as China’s regional proxy, the nation’s governance fragility and impending fiscal insolvency portend ominous implications.
Undoubtedly, Pakistan may find itself entangled in a situation worse than Sri Lanka’s recent economic and political cataclysm, which was calmed by India’s quick emergency aid, giving Sri Lanka the flexibility to renegotiate its financial commitments with international creditors. But a collapse in Pakistan would have far-reaching effects throughout the region. The military brass may be tempted to play the India card, as has happened in the annals of history, if there is the possibility of widespread civil unrest or schisms within the military echelons. It would become a dangerous gambit to fabricate a crisis in Kashmir or plan an incursion by extremists across the border, certain that India would be forced to act.
Lastly, there is a discernible glimmer of hope from the sharp top of this cliff. A genuine and unadulterated effort to address these dire fiscal issues, free from the harmful influences of geopolitical maneuvering, may be sparked by the economy’s abrupt descent into turmoil. The nation is still struggling to deal with the political system’s inherent flaws, so the long-term outlook is far from encouraging. A fundamental departure from the traditional vertical framework of governance, exemplified by a centralized state or government, is urgently needed in Pakistan. A paradigm shifts toward the idea of network governance, in which a horizontal web of organizations operates with individual autonomy and simultaneously contributes to the overall economic tapestry, is imperative.
Economy
Why Global Goals Are Global Holes in Need to Be Filled With Entrepreneurialism?

Entrepreneurialism is not a Utopian dreamland; it is a war of special skills focused on solving impossible problems, applying real value creation models, exploring and validating commercialization, and optimizing human talents to make such ideas standardize, monetize, and globalize. No university can teach this, as we are all already gifted with this talent worldwide. Discover your own entrepreneurial powers.
Why is entrepreneurial mysticism not occupied in search of abstract blanket solutions like poverty eradication or humankind living on full stomachs? Instead, it focuses on pragmatic and immediately implementable solutions like creating a slice-bread factory and becoming a global giant. No further proof is required if over a million entrepreneurs have already created over a million original small and medium businesses, and each has grown into creating over a million jobs. Why the lingering fear of identifying at least one Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, whoever built one such creation?
At the same time, entrepreneurialism will never dream of living in a super deluxe home but rather first search for nails, a hammer, and a piece of lumber. Entrepreneurialism is a call to march straight ahead, like a soldier engaged in a tactical do-or-die battle of skills on productivity, performance, and profitability, but staying far away from dreaming of victory and retiring in the castle with bling-bling parties. Far too many other occupations can achieve such results, but this peculiar behavior differs from the prime spirits of entrepreneurial mysticism. It is always based on finding powerful, particular, superior quality, and proprietary solutions, marketable as highly efficient value offerings at a profitable, sustainable, and reputable answer to the existing problems. A study of the last 1000 life-altering, game-changer entrepreneurs is essential.
Prophets and Saints have repeatedly died while dreaming of eliminating global poverty and hunger while searching for good health. Perhaps the United Nations, in pursuit of the grand vision global goals, saw an assembly of such incredible human potential to create the lineup of the world’s most impossible dreams and bundled them as if some sudden Rapture would finally wide open a few heavenly doors.
The cruelties of the globalization of such large-scale ideas and the difficulties of creating entrepreneurial journeys are neither found in academic nor bureaucratic mindsets. Openly visible like a book, all entrepreneurial adventures from steam to railways or bare wires to light-up continents or Kitty Hawk to global airlines are based on unique entrepreneurial mysticism.
After all, the noble cause of the global goals of the United Nations with endless international road shows, million meetings, and millions of narratives today stands still at a bridge too far. It was nobody’s fault; perhaps entrepreneurialism was eliminated from the equation for some reason. Nevertheless, how does entrepreneurialism work today?
Entrepreneurialism can immediately help global goals, not as another academic study but as a direct, bold, and open entrepreneurial response. The challenge is to select the priorities of each global goal and transform them from great visionary ideas into demonstratable working models. Graduate them quickly into value-creating workable models and move them to globally marketable, fiscally sustainable, interactive, digitally savvy, and functioning live for platform economies. All this must be globally acceptable as commonsense narratives and explainable logical models.
Now, this is not a call for academia or bureaucracies in formal black robes; this immediately demands an urgent addition of global-age entrepreneurialism to blend the scientific ideas and existing global goals energies to achieve balanced mindset combinations of current job seeker mindsets with entrepreneurial job creator mindsets to create high speed fertile and pragmatic battlefields.
Vision is not about seeing something big, wide, and far afar, but instead seeing something minimal, narrow but far more clearly and sharply focused. Entrepreneurialism is not about searching for an eagle flying somewhere in the sky but catching a bird in hand. They drive by creating maximum impact with minimal resources, deploy immediately applicable pragmatism, and achieve earth-shattering results.
Steve Jobs never dreamed of creating an HQ with circularity to hold a trillion-dollar company; he only wanted to create an iPhone and fight every conceivable force of telephony of the day against him, to make a real highly functional super phone, with lightning speed to immediately solve the global communication handicaps and change mobility for the world. So this is what he did, and that changed the world.
Henceforth, vision in entrepreneurialism is a borderline illusion, which risks becoming a hallucination when priorities and skills are oddly blended. Focus is where all the tactical battles are won. Open-ended superhuman goals are great ideas; they make an excellent copy and graphics from the logo-slogan agencies, but never the tactical battlefield formation execution plans with the cry for the battle.
To apply architectural or mathematical wisdom, big global goals can only be achieved with precise advancement and correct sequences. More entrepreneurialism must be immediately added to advance the impossible big globalalities of the goals. With articulated design and real value creation with refined practicality, super speed of execution, and a proven approach to commercialization, monetization, and globalization, things will be done much faster.
A prerequisite is a deep study of the National Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism and how to create oceans of new small and medium enterprises. Once superior quality and global expansion are established, such ideas flourish under the global goal of protecting the future.
GLOBAL GOALS + ENTREPRENEURIALISM + NATIONAL + MOBILZATION = CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
How can countries come to the Global SDG Summit with clear benchmarks to tackle grand schemes without experiences of global scale deployment and mobilization of real value creation models and systematic monetization and commercialization with value offering models?
What are the best scenarios to compile and create national mobilization of entrepreneurialism to uplift the critical points leading to entrepreneurial narratives and, with the right teams, once balanced, creating authoritative, collaborative, and constructive dialogues that are good for the nation, solid for the citizenry, and common sense for financial markets?
In the next 1,000 days, the new world will not be dystopian but a battlefield landscape fighting mental wars of sorts in search of the first industrial revolution of the mind.
Let the new world come together and mobilize new wisdom of mindset hypothesis; how will future organizations and global bodies differentiate and balance entrepreneurial job creator mindsets with educated and trained job seeker mindsets? Job seekers build the enterprises, and Job creators originate such new enterprises. Balancing both mindsets is a real victory.
Superpowers are fighting for global posture, and micro-power nations are struggling to survive; this is now a climax point. This is where national mobilization of entrepreneurialism appears, a logical solution for the country so it can enter the gate to join the races into the successive league or remain at a standstill outside.
Population-rich nations are on a fast track and opening, leaving knowledge-rich countries behind. The war of competence will become as open as the track and field games of the Olympics. Where countries will have their best team stand up to the global age of competition and shine on global stage.
What will newly formatted Global Goals look like when combined with balanced mindsets and meaningful national economic uplifts? However, once mandated, any nation-by-nation deployments of the national citizenry, with speedy mobilization of national entrepreneurialism, will create a common mindshare. Immediate Digitization of SMEs with classification and categorization will create global export trajectories. After all, such maximum optimization of SME talents guided by entrepreneurial job creator mindsets is an intuitive and logical approach to achieving big global goals.
Imagine if 10K to 100K high-potential SMEs within a region or a country were placed on up-skilling and re-skilling platforms with intentions to quadruple their exportability. If such deployments achieved 10% to 50% results, they would make the nation’s most prominent economic contributions.
Understanding the narrative of Expothon Worldwide: Expothon has been sharing information weekly with some 2000 senior officials at the Cabinet level in around 100 countries for the last 50 to 100 weeks. Mastery of new entrepreneurial economic thinking is a new revolution in SME Mobilization. We are constantly adding new talents. A global high-level virtual event series will further advance the agenda; in planning are debates to clarify and table turnkey mobilization options in the coming months. Study more on Google.
Conclusion: Smoothly polished and well-balanced academic studies often neither find any rescue plans nor assemblies of nations discover some workable solutions, but instead, bold open dialogues to bring entrepreneurialism as the second wheel of the same cart struggling on a long journey may find answers for both. Deep study via Google is a prerequisite. The rest is easy.
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