NATURE AND SALIENT FEATURES OF PAKISTAN’S MANUFACTURING SECTOR: A COMPREHENSIVE INSIGHT

The study investigates the nature and salient features of Pakistan’s manufacturing sector by focusing on the structure, conduct and performance aspects for 2004-2018. In structural analysis, Pakistan State Oil Company Ltd has turned out to be the largest firm according to gross sales criterion while Oil & Gas Development. Co. Ltd is classified as the largest firm according to the total assets criterion. Six industries are categorized as most heavily concentrated industries, five industries are in moderately concentrated industries while four industries are placed in the least heavily concentrated industries according to four-firm concentration criterion while according to Herfindahl-Hirschman Index principle, six industries are characterized as highly concentrated industries, two industries are in moderately concentrated industries while seven industries are placed in low concentrated industries. Demand and market conditions point out the disparity between the own-price elasticity of market demand and the own-price elasticity of a firm’s product. In conduct analysis, Learner’s index shows that there is imperfect competition in Pakistan’s manufacturing sector. The chemicals & Pharmaceuticals industry has come out with high advertising while the Petroleum Products industry has the lowest advisement intensity. In performance analysis, Spinning, Weaving has more gross profit to sales ratio while Electrical Machinery & Apparatus has the lowest gross profit to sales ratio. The Motor Vehicles industry is at the top for Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes (CCR), BankerCharnes-Cooper (BCC) criteria while for scale efficiency, the cement industry stands at the apex