Steps for the betterment of Pakistan

HOW TO PROMOTE ECONOMY OF PAKISTAN?

A Economic growth is measured by an increase in gross domestic product (GDP),
which is defined as the combined value of all goods and services produced within
a country in a year. Many forces contribute to economic growth; unfortunately,
no one is 100% clear about what these forces are or how to put them into motion.
If this information was known, the economy, spurred by these forces, could grow
at a constant rate unencumbered by recessions and stagnation.

Politicians and economists are forever holding debates on the different ideas
trotted out with the promise of being economic panaceas. Measures taken to
induce economic growth include infrastructure spending, deregulation, tax cuts
and tax rebates.

The salient features of Pakistan’s economic history are:

• Pakistan is self sufficient in most food production.

• Per capita incomes have expanded more than six-fold in US Dollar terms.

• Pakistan has emerged as one of the leading and successful producers of

cotton and cotton textiles.

• Pakistan has developed a highly diversified base of manufactured products

for domestic and world markets.

• Physical infrastructure network has expanded with a vast network of gas,

power, roads and highways, ports and telecommunication facilities.

1. Energy crisis:
2. Terrorism
3. Wealth Concentration
4. Corruption
5. Youth Unemployment
 6. Lack in quality Education
7. Poor health facilities
8. Tax evasion
9. Lack of good Governance

TOURISM

Pakistan has lot of places to attract tourists apart from Walled city of Lahore, Old
Civilization of Harrapa, Mohinjodor and Texilla where people are still living , there
are lot of other places like Katas Raj Temple, Mughal Architectures in various
places and Definitely Northern Areas of Pakistan are like a heaven for tourists, but
to attract tourist Pakistan have to maintain its stability.There are other areas that
need simultaneous attention to boost the economy. Keeping in view the great
potential of tourism, it has to be given top priority. Improvement in the overall
security situation is the first requirement for attracting visitors. For tourism to
succeed, the current visa policy will have to be reviewed. It should be made less
bureaucratic and cumbersome and prospective visitors should be able to get visas
in a relatively shorter period. The current visa policy is illogical by any standards.
In fact, it is a two-visa policy — one to enter Pakistan and specific to a city or
place. The second visa is given to allow the visitor, tourist, official member of the
diplomatic community to visit only dedicated places and mostly under scrutiny.
This is self- defeating and demeaning and suggests a paranoia mindset. For one
wonders what exactly do our officials fear from citizens of Japan, South Korea,
Singapore, Thailand or Germany, France or Russia, Norway or Sweden and say
Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Iran! For them only an official
engagement, business interest or a strong tourist passion to visit the beauty of
Northern Areas or historical sites will bring them to Pakistan. They would
otherwise have least interest in Pakistan. If any of the countries were to fight their
proxy wars in Pakistan, their people would generally not come through official
channels. And as experience shows that category of applicant is easily identified
by our intelligence agencies. Even for citizens of India, we need to relax the visa
regime. Businessmen, ordinary citizens, relatives and tourists from India should
have greater freedom to visit Pakistan. The processing of visa should not take that
long. Travel restrictions imposed by Pakistan on US diplomats are a major source
of friction between the countries. This has resulted in Washington imposing
similar restrictions on our diplomatic staff.

INDUSTRIES

Adopting a “Make in Pakistan” approach to strengthen domestic industry would

create the much needed jobs as well as value-added exports and import
substitution. The role of manufacturing in the economy has declined over the
years and its growth is well below that of India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Pakistan
is rapidly losing its share in world exports, whilst Bangladesh has more than
doubled its share in the last 15 years. We must identify and reverse the factors
undermining domestic industry to drive up value-added exports and promote
import substitution

A market of over 200 million people provides domestic manufacturing (and

service industries) the opportunity to acquire scale and become competitive. With
this advantage, Pakistan can reduce its reliance on imports and find markets for
value-added exports abroad.

• Govt Companies and Organization

• Improve taxation and tax collection
• ENERGY CRISES

Out of all the problems we face as a country, energy seems to be the one that
annoys us the most. It’s not that other issues are not important or are somehow
less annoying; it is just that every single person in Pakistan uses energy in one
form or another and hence is directly affected by it at a very personal level.

Even though I would have personally preferred the perspective economic plans to
be put forward first, but a start on an issue like energy strategy seems to be
pretty good too. This is a national issue and we need all the alternative policies
we can get to finally craft a solid national policy and in that regard, political
parties putting forward their workable strategies is something the people have
longed for.And in that spirit, I would like to present a few ideas that can help with
our energy crisis.
1. Replacing thermal power fuel

2. Moving past the myth of Thar coal

3. Improved energy mix

4. Stand alone power projects

5. Dismantle the national grid

Pakistan Agriculture & LiveStock

Pakistan’s agriculture, livestock and dairy potential is vast but yield and quality
are below global standards. This denies farmers adequate returns. The
government’s support price for sugar-cane and wheat results in uneconomic
surpluses of both sugar and wheat, at the expense of cotton, which the textile
industry needs for value-added exports. We also need to encourage the growth of
oil-seeds. The country spends billions in importing edible oil. A heavily taxed
broadband internet limits penetration and growth of e-commerce and the digital
economy, marring the potential for jobs and exports.

Pakistan Agriculture

Economy of every state depends on three sectors i.e agriculture, industry and
commerce. These three are interrelated with each other as the progress or
retrogress of one sector effects the other two. Pakistan is an agricultural state
thus agriculture gains are of much importance than any other sector. Importance
of this sector is manifold as it feeds people, provides raw material for industry and
is a base for foreign trade. Foreign exchange earned from merchandise exports is
45% of total exports of Pakistan. It contributes 26% of GDP and 52% of the total
populace is getting its livelihood from it. 67.5% people are living in the rural areas
of Pakistan and are directly involved in it.

• Solutions For Agricultural Problems In Pakistan: Feudalism should be

abolished
• Taxes should be levied on Agricultural income but not
• without devising limit of land holding
 • should take responsible steps in approving seeds
• A new Agricultural policy must be framed in which following steps should
be focussed on.

Small farmer must be focused. The major problems of small farmers should be
solved first.

Consumer friendly policy must be projected.

Productivity enhancement programme must be

constituted to adjust and support prices.

Different Agricultural zones should be introduced.

• Latest machinery should be provided to the farmers

• Modern techniques of irrigation can solve the problems of irrigation in
Pakistan
• More dams should be constructed

EDUCATION SYSTEM OF PAKISTAN

It is clear in this Era of Technology and progress that Education plays vital role in
progress and development of a country and nation. As Pakistan is an under
developed country, Education is Extremely important for its Children and
youngsters as well.

We are watching that standard of Education system in Pakistan is worst of its kind
and if it will not change, Economy of Pakistan will go down daily and Pakistan
cannot become Fully developed country until the System and structure of
Education is improved or totally changed.

Today I am here with some suggestions for the Improvement in the current
Education of Pakistan for a Better future because according to the Article of 25-A
of constitution of Pakistan:
THE STATE SHALL PROVIDE FREE AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION TO ALL
CHILDREN OF THE AGE OF FIVE TO SIXTEEN YEARS IN SUCH A MANNER AS MAY
BE DETERMINED BY LAW

But as we see today in Pakistan that the condition of schools and colleges of Govt.
sector is worst as compared to Private schools and colleges, This is mainly due to
the syllabus and the method of teaching in both Govt. and Private sector.

We ourselves have created double standards for education like different

education levels for different classes of people (i.e: middle class, lower class and
upper class people), because lower class people could not afford such costly fees
of private sectors.

• Let me highlight some main points for improvement of Education

system in Pakistan
• Career Counseling
• Change the system
• Equality and Quality in Syllabus
• Training for Teachers
Further steps:
Introduce market-based reforms in the energy sector.
The government needs to introduce market-based reforms in the energy sector – for both
electricity and natural gas – based on a transfer of control over the distribution infrastructure to
provinces.

The government should also bring market-based reforms in the petroleum sector. Currently, the
government of Pakistan sets the wellhead price, the retail price, refining margins, as well as
investor returns, all of which incentivises rent seeking behaviour and poor resource allocation.
This has also caused Pakistan to have the highest electricity rates in the region at 12 cents per
kilowatt-hour (kWh) as well as reduced annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 2%.

The government has to move away from actively participating in markets to a role of a regulator
of markets through empowered institutions that encourage competition.
Establish world class science based academic institutions in partnership with
Chinese.
These knowledge spillovers will be critical to support long-term productivity growth. We also
need the government to support e-learning and upgrade the primary and secondary school
curriculum to include problem solving (logic/mathematics), critical thinking/reasoning
(science/philosophy), creative expression (art and humanities) and principle-based decision
making (values/ethics).

Price water usage and stop agriculture support prices, especially for sugar
cane.
About 90% of water in Pakistan is used to generate only about 5% of the GDP. And GDP
productivity is only $1.5 per cubic metre of water, versus the global average of $8 per cubic
metre. Water is already scarce – we have less than 1000 cubic metres per capita in Pakistan – yet
we are producing water thirsty, low value-added crops which can easily be imported, and yet at
the same time we are importing water value added crops like vegetables and legumes. Fun fact
about Pakistan: agricultural productivity actually increases during droughts due to lower “market
failure” as farmers switch to more water productive crops

Increase the tax net through proper documentation whilst reducing taxes on
the formal sector.
This will help access to formal financing for the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector,
which currently accounts for only 5% of bank financing. The government also needs to push for
the elimination of the practice of double book-keeping, as well as encouraging greater use of
technology-based solutions, which will lead to more productivity gains.

In addition, the government of Pakistan must take immediate and meaningful steps to increase
credit to the private sector – such as through tax incentives. Private sector credit in Pakistan is
currently at just 18.8% of GDP, versus 50% in India. More credit to the private sector will have a
multiplier impact on GDP growth.

Diversify and expand the export base through new products, new services,
and new markets.
Our exports have not changed much since the Indus Valley Civilisation traded cotton and grain
with Mesopotamian empires over 5,000 years ago. Cotton textiles and foods still account for
over 70% of Pakistan’s exports. We need the government to create specialised industrial zones
that will be based on manufacturing of goods to export but for new products and markets (such
as engineering, chemicals, electronics and food products).

Also, the government needs to support the development of formalised information technology
services export sector – IT consultancies, business process outsourcing (BPO), etc. – through a
cluster approach. No country has ever gone from developing to developed without exports. and
we need to target having an exports-to-import ratio of 2, from the current 0.5.

Encourage the development of a digital infrastructure in order to bridge the

digital divide and democratise learning and market access.
Every 10% increase in broadband penetration increases GDP growth by 1.2%. Fixed-line
broadband penetration – the most reliable and high-quality kind – is still only 0.25% of the
population. Over 50 million people live in areas that have 3G or 4G cellular coverage but still do
not have access to a smartphone. This needs to change.

Introduce market-based reforms and investment in the transport industry,

especially high-speed rail, port infrastructure and intra-city transport.
Currently, about 92% of all land transport is through trucks, which is among the highest in the
world. Poor logistical efficiency leads to a loss of competitiveness for local industries, poor city
planning, environmental degradation, and poorer living standards.

Encourage local and international tourism.

The potential for large scale employment and foreign exchange inflows through tourism is
enormous. Plus, it gives the country a softer image and allows for more exchange of ideas and
capabilities. There is a tremendous opportunity in this sector, given Pakistan’s natural, historical,
religious, and cultural assets. Yet a total of 17,823 tourists visited Pakistan in 2019 compared to
1.9 million visiting Sri Lanka, 10 million in India, and 39 million in Thailand.

Reduce the propensity for real estate to be used to park black money.
This artificially increases asset prices, thereby reducing the ability for people to buy homes
through mortgages. Pakistan has one of the highest home price-to-annual income ratio at 11:1
versus 8.35 for the UK, even though interest rates are much lower there. Loans to bank
employees are more than the entire mortgage market of the country. Also, the government should
consider federal insurance schemes to kick start mortgage-based financing, which will
substantially increase private sector credit and create demand for many ancillary local industries.

Invest in environmental and social assets.

Pakistan is the 7th most vulnerable country to the effects of climate change and has one of the
lowest forest cover, currently at 2% of our land area. Furthermore, the health impact of a poor
environment is large due to poor water and air quality-related medical issues, especially amongst
the most vulnerable segments of the population. About 75% of medical issues in children in
Pakistan are due to water- and airborne diseases.

In addition, greater involvement of women in the labour force will also drive economic growth.
The female labour force participation rate in Pakistan is 18% versus 59% in Thailand