By Muhammad Luqman
Pakistan has achieved the highest growth rate of 5.79%, in the past 13 years, according to Economic Survey 2017-18 unveiled at a ceremony in capital Islamabad , just a day before federal budget on Thursday.
“This is the highest growth rate in 13 years. We could have easily achieved a 6.1 percent growth rate had the country not faced political instability in the past year,” Federal Planning and Development Minister, Ahsan Iqbal told the participants.
He claimed that the growth rate figure was endorsed by the World Bank and other international organisations.
“Economics, I often say is not a homeopathic medicine that does not have side effects,” said Iqbal. “We had the possibility to resolve the power crisis in eight years and that could have given us a more stable macroeconomic plan but we had no choice because we needed growth and opportunities for the youth.”
The Economic Survey 2017-18 incorporates the latest figures incurred in the war against terror. Pakistan’s total losses after becoming part of the war might have crossed the $125 billion mark in the last 17 years as it stood at $123.13 billion till 2016-17.
The incumbent federal government had brought changes in methodology for calculating the number of people living below the poverty line from food, energy intake (EFI) to Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) and had estimated that 29.5 per cent population was living the poverty line on the basis of survey done in 2013-14. On the basis of new methodology, the poverty stood at 64.2 per cent in 2001 during General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf’s regime which showed declining trends since 2001 and now touched below 25 per cent in 2015-16.
During the last 16 years, the direct and indirect cost incurred by Pakistan due to incidents of terrorism amounted to $123.13 billion equivalent to Rs10,373.93 billion since 2001-2.
This cost will definitely go up by few billion dollars after adding up losses incurred during the outgoing fiscal year 2017-18 but in return, Pakistan had obtained peanuts from the international community in the last 17 years despite becoming a main hub of the conflict zone for several years.
