Market of Tomorrow Report 2023

E-commerce , digital trade, Ed-Tech, Robotics, Digital platforms and apps developments can create new markets in the country

Muhammad Naeem:

Islamabad:  The World Economic Forum has issued the “Markets of Tomorrow Report 2023”. The Markets of Tomorrow Report 2023 identifies the technologies of strategic importance across countries and explores the opportunities and obstacles to creating new markets.

The Report discusses the key findings on the top technologies, the most important enabling sectors, and the key bottlenecks to market creation. The Report also provides a wider overview of the markets of tomorrow data, with profiles covering the top ten technologies, sectors.

The Research for the Report was conducted by Mishal Pakistan, the Country Partner Institute of the New Economy and Societies Platforms, World Economic Forum.

Amir Jahangir, Chief Executive Officer, Mishal Pakistan, said, “the data on Pakistan shows that the technologies with strategic priority and potential to create new markets and opportunities in the country are in the agriculture technologies areas, E-commerce and digital trade, EdTech, Robotics, Digital platforms and apps developments”.

The data identifies nanotechnology, electric and autonomous vehicles development, augmented and virtuality as the least potential technologies for Pakistan as the future market player in the global sphere. On the top 10 key sectors that can generate new markets in Pakistan have been identified as 1) Information Technology Services, 2) Media and Publishing, 3) Medical and Healthcare Services, 4) Production of Consumer Goods, 5) Employment, Education and Training Services, 6) NGOs, professional bodies, and unions, 7) International bilateral and multilateral organizations, 8) Education 9) Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, and 10) financial services and capital markets.

As per report ,among the least potential sectors, Engineering and construction, mining and minerals, social work, electronics, automotive and aerospace, energy tech and utilities, Rental, reservation and leasing services, Chemical and advanced materials, Advanced manufacturing, Retail, and wholesale of consumer goods .

The main obstacles to the growth of new markets for Pakistan have been identified as lack of needed complementary infrastructure, skills and talent, lack of demand to sustain a commercially viable market, lack of clear market standards, deficiency of mature firms to reliably produce products, scarcity of fiscal space and private sector financing, absence of an innovative breakthrough ecosystem, non-agreement on the value of the product or asset, nonexistence of initiative from the public sector, and poor legal frameworks for the product or assets.

To develop a more nuanced overview of the technologies and sectors that are set to shape the markets of tomorrow, the Report draws on more than 12,000 responses to the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey.

The Survey carried out in more than 120 economies. In Pakistan, Mishal Pakistan carried out the research from January to May 2022. When asked about the sectors where their chosen technologies might unleash new markets, global respondents cited information and technology services first, reflecting the central importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to the markets of tomorrow. The agriculture sector came second, and the energy sector third. Finally, respondents were asked to select the three most frequently cited market bottlenecks, they answered with: skills and talent, infrastructure, and initiative from the public sector.

The Report is produced with the theme of Turning Technologies into New Sources of Global Growth. Against the backdrop of an increasingly contested geo economics world order, governments in many countries are restructuring industrial policies to serve well-defined strategic purposes. This is in line with historical precedent, as times of crisis or uncertainty tend to see governments take the lead in prioritizing specific problems and marshalling the actors and resources required to solve them.

In parallel, businesses are becoming more purpose driven in their approach to markets, driven by investor movements prioritizing environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing as well as by public pressure.

This twin trend has the potential to underpin a new era of public-private convergence on addressing the most important problems facing humanity, with governments taking more initiative on market co-creation and businesses taking more responsibility for orienting their products and services towards social and environmental outcomes.

However, more proactive, and strategic planning is needed to create the “markets of tomorrow” to solve the most important national, regional, and global problems.

 The Markets of Tomorrow Report, which builds on earlier Forum work in this area,2 data from the global Executive Opinion Survey sheds light on three key questions: Which technologies have the highest strategic importance around the world? Which sectors enable the growth of new markets? And what are the bottlenecks obstructing the growth of new markets to act on these strategic priorities? The answers to these questions provide an outline map of purpose-driven market opportunities around the world and a starting point for in-depth multistakeholder dialogue and action at the national level. Technologies related to economic foundations – agriculture, education, and energy – feature prominently, while the information and technology services sector play the largest role in enabling the growth of new markets. The key bottlenecks relate to talent, infrastructure, and public sector initiative. There is significant variation across economies at different income levels.