Impact of Institutional Quality on Trade Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Pakistan

The trade economy is dependent upon the institutional quality of the country. It affects the ease of doing business in the economy. It is plausible to think that, how institutional quality can affect the trading performance of Pakistan. Small & medium enterprises (SMEs) are playing the role of the backbone of the trade sector in Pakistan. Contribution SMEs can be significantly improved, by improving the supporting macroeconomic indicators. This paper studies the short-run and the long-run association between SME trade growth and cost of production, relative prices, and Institutional quality in Pakistan. It also examines the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, between SME trade growth and institutional quality in Pakistan. This study utilizes secondary data, which is taken from multiple secondary sources, including the SMEDA, Pakistan Economic Survey, and world development indicators. The biannual data is assembled up for 38 observations from (2000 to 2019). This study uses Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) bound testing method to examine the short run and long run connections between SMEs’ trade growth and macro-economic variables, like; relative prices, Cost of production. Gross Domestic Product, exchange rate, and institutional quality. These variables are selected from the available literature. The study finds that the short-run response of SMEs trade is not significant, but it significantly responds to macro-economic indicators in long run. The institutional quality has a non-linear relationship with SMEs trade growth. This indicates that the pollution heaven hypothesis holds valid even for the case of institutional quality and SMEs trading performance. The study focuses on the optimality of institutional quality for the optimal performance level of SMEs in Pakistan.

Phytosanitary Management of Trogoderma Granarium Everts With Methyl Bromide Alternatives to Ensure Food Security and Safety

Wheat crop occupies a central position in agriculture sector and our national economy. Pakistan’s contribution toward global wheat production is about 3.2 percent. The Punjab province is leading producer of wheat with a share of more than 70 percent of the total wheat production of the country. Despite being an agricultural country, food security of Pakistan has remained at stake since long because of poor yield and high post harvest losses caused by the storage pests. On the other hand country has a great exporting potential not only to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to food security and safety but can earn foreign exchange and pay off country’s entire debts within 10 years just equaling our yield to that of Indian Punjab. Present investigations were, therefore, carried out to explore these potentials in terms of reducing post-harvest losses, food security and safety risks caused by the storage pests particularly the Khapra beetle which is a notified quarantine pest internationally. The studies revealed an average loss of 15.5 percent when 10 pairs of Khapra larvae were released for a period of 6 months under the natural conditions. Similarly there were found 33 and 8 percent increase in number of weeviled and broken grains, respectively. Besides, the beetle depleted approximately 4 percent carbohydrates that resulted in 0.35 and 1 percent increase in ash and crude fiber contents, respectively. Although total protein and fat percentages were slightly increased, yet these increases were predominantly due to the percentage loss of carbohydrates as well as production of proteinaceous by-products of live insects, insect fragments, and excreta etc., which could not be sieved from the samples before chemical analysis. Further analysis of about 400 samples drawn from the entire province revealed that quality of Punjab wheat not only meets the international standards rather it is superior in many characteristics including protein content, moisture, bulk density, foreign matter, falling number. However, presence of quarantine pests such as T. granarium, Tilletia spores and Striga weeds render it unmarketable in the quality conscious world. A compatible Wheat crop occupies a central position in agriculture sector and our national economy. Pakistan’s contribution toward global wheat production is about 3.2 percent. The Punjab province is leading producer of wheat with a share of more than 70 percent of the total wheat production of the country. Despite being an agricultural country, food security of Pakistan has remained at stake since long because of poor yield and high post harvest losses caused by the storage pests. On the other hand country has a great exporting potential not only to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to food security and safety but can earn foreign exchange and pay off country’s entire debts within 10 years just equaling our yield to that of Indian Punjab. Present investigations were, therefore, carried out to explore these potentials in terms of reducing post-harvest losses, food security and safety risks caused by the storage pests particularly the Khapra beetle which is a notified quarantine pest internationally. The studies revealed an average loss of 15.5 percent when 10 pairs of Khapra larvae were released for a period of 6 months under the natural conditions. Similarly there were found 33 and 8 percent increase in number of weeviled and broken grains, respectively. Besides, the beetle depleted approximately 4 percent carbohydrates that resulted in 0.35 and 1 percent increase in ash and crude fiber contents, respectively. Although total protein and fat percentages were slightly increased, yet these increases were predominantly due to the percentage loss of carbohydrates as well as production of proteinaceous by-products of live insects, insect fragments, and excreta etc., which could not be sieved from the samples before chemical analysis. Further analysis of about 400 samples drawn from the entire province revealed that quality of Punjab wheat not only meets the international standards rather it is superior in many characteristics including protein content, moisture, bulk density, foreign matter, falling number. However, presence of quarantine pests such as T. granarium, Tilletia spores and Striga weeds render it unmarketable in the quality conscious world. A compatible Wheat crop occupies a central position in agriculture sector and our national economy. Pakistan’s contribution toward global wheat production is about 3.2 percent. The Punjab province is leading producer of wheat with a share of more than 70 percent of the total wheat production of the country. Despite being an agricultural country, food security of Pakistan has remained at stake since long because of poor yield and high post harvest losses caused by the storage pests. On the other hand country has a great exporting potential not only to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to food security and safety but can earn foreign exchange and pay off country’s entire debts within 10 years just equaling our yield to that of Indian Punjab. Present investigations were, therefore, carried out to explore these potentials in terms of reducing post-harvest losses, food security and safety risks caused by the storage pests particularly the Khapra beetle which is a notified quarantine pest internationally. The studies revealed an average loss of 15.5 percent when 10 pairs of Khapra larvae were released for a period of 6 months under the natural conditions. Similarly there were found 33 and 8 percent increase in number of weeviled and broken grains, respectively. Besides, the beetle depleted approximately 4 percent carbohydrates that resulted in 0.35 and 1 percent increase in ash and crude fiber contents, respectively. Although total protein and fat percentages were slightly increased, yet these increases were predominantly due to the percentage loss of carbohydrates as well as production of proteinaceous by-products of live insects, insect fragments, and excreta etc., which could not be sieved from the samples before chemical analysis. Further analysis of about 400 samples drawn from the entire province revealed that quality of Punjab wheat not only meets the international standards rather it is superior in many characteristics including protein content, moisture, bulk density, foreign matter, falling number. However, presence of quarantine pests such as T. granarium, Tilletia spores and Striga weeds render it unmarketable in the quality conscious world. A compatible Wheat crop occupies a central position in agriculture sector and our national economy. Pakistan’s contribution toward global wheat production is about 3.2 percent. The Punjab province is leading producer of wheat with a share of more than 70 percent of the total wheat production of the country. Despite being an agricultural country, food security of Pakistan has remained at stake since long because of poor yield and high post harvest losses caused by the storage pests. On the other hand country has a great exporting potential not only to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to food security and safety but can earn foreign exchange and pay off country’s entire debts within 10 years just equaling our yield to that of Indian Punjab. Present investigations were, therefore, carried out to explore these potentials in terms of reducing post-harvest losses, food security and safety risks caused by the storage pests particularly the Khapra beetle which is a notified quarantine pest internationally. The studies revealed an average loss of 15.5 percent when 10 pairs of Khapra larvae were released for a period of 6 months under the natural conditions. Similarly there were found 33 and 8 percent increase in number of weeviled and broken grains, respectively. Besides, the beetle depleted approximately 4 percent carbohydrates that resulted in 0.35 and 1 percent increase in ash and crude fiber contents, respectively. Although total protein and fat percentages were slightly increased, yet these increases were predominantly due to the percentage loss of carbohydrates as well as production of proteinaceous by-products of live insects, insect fragments, and excreta etc., which could not be sieved from the samples before chemical analysis. Further analysis of about 400 samples drawn from the entire province revealed that quality of Punjab wheat not only meets the international standards rather it is superior in many characteristics including protein content, moisture, bulk density, foreign matter, falling number. However, presence of quarantine pests such as T. granarium, Tilletia spores and Striga weeds render it unmarketable in the quality conscious world. A compatible treatment of are house with 2 % deltamethrin, Lambda cyhalothrin or DDVP. The present findings will surely help in bridging the gap between food security demand/supply and will enable us to improve quality and safety of the treated cereals resulting in enhanced acceptance of our food crops in the international market." xml:lang="en_US