Pakistan is a land of mostly hot, dry desert with limited natural freshwater supplies. It predominantly consists of the flat Indus River plains with mountainous areas in the north and northwest.
Though endwed with natural gas reserves, it is an impoverished and underdeveloped country, and has suffered from internal political disputes, lack of foreign investment, and a costly confrontation with neighbouring India, leaving it with poor human development indicators and a reliance on international creditors for hard currency inflows.

The long-term economic prospects remain uncertain as GDP growth is heavily reliant on agricultural production and import dependency on foreign oil means a vulnerability to fluctuating oil prices. Trade levels have suffered.