Pakistan, June 18 -- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called the federal budget "people-friendly" and expressed the hope that it will push Pakistan towards an export-oriented economy. One may wish for those hopes to be realised. Yet the fiscal document tells a more constrained story. A budget with an outlay of Rs18.8 trillion, markup payments of Rs 8.045 trillion, current expenditure of Rs 17.495 trillion while being backed by first-ever provincial grants of over Rs1 trillion is not primarily a growth document. It is a debt-management document with selective relief attached.

The government is not wrong to cite signs of macroeconomic repair. The economy has reached a reported $452 billion, foreign exchange reserves have climbed above $17...