Re: Vision 2025 : Pakistan
jaane den miyan sahib ye keh kar to vote le ke aae hain : hum ko Punjabi hone ki saza di ja rahi hai. Karachi main loadshedding nahin hoti, wahan loadshedding karwaen ge 
Re: Vision 2025 : Pakistan
Long-term vision in hard times - DAWN.COM
**The focus of the Nawaz Sharif government on Vision 2025 at a point when the country is faced with grave economic issues of immediate nature raises some doubts about its ability to grapple with the existing complex situation.
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The over-arching problems call for a ‘fire-fighting’ approach, followed by short-term urgent corrective steps in tackling imbalances in the economy.
“How can the planning minister even suggest discussing long-term policy when the country is on a few weeks distance from sovereign default, and when revenues are sliding, expenditures are rising and the value of currency is eroding? I did receive an invitation from the planning minister to a meeting on Vision 2025, but I excused myself,” informed a senior economist in Lahore.
“Well, first things come first. The long-term is immaterial at the current level of economic uncertainty. Yes, the government should try to ward off immediate threats to the foundation of the economic system,” Dr Hafiz Pasha commented from Lahore over telephone.
“The formation of an economic advisory body is on the cards. The problems are complex and require cooperation and coordination of all stakeholders and the support of the pool of economists in the country. Please give us some time and we will put the economy back on the rails,” responded Dr Waqar Masood, the federal finance secretary.
Last week, Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal unveiled a bare outline of the Vision 2025 in Islamabad. It included a proposed integrated energy plan, modernisation of infrastructure, mobilisation of indigenous resources, self-reliance, institutional reforms and governance, value addition in production sectors, export and private sector-led growth while leveraging social capital.
Mr Iqbal listed the whole range of problems facing the country, which raised hopes that the Vision may harmonise development in various sectors of the economy through an integrated approach that should help avoid tragic failures such as an unprecedented energy shortage.
But at the same time, the Vision 2025 left an impression that it was no more than a ‘wish-list’. One just gets a faint idea of the government’s priority in the minister identifying three underlying factors for economic revival as: increasing tax revenue, investment and exports. Otherwise, there is no clear picture of the Vision, for which one has to wait for the detailed plan to be announced before the end of this calendar year.
The planning commission needs to come out with an indicative five-year investment schedule to help domestic and foreign investors to pick up projects of their choice while the gaps should be filled in either by private-public partnership or the state sector. Where-ever needed, the government should offer an incentive package and common facilities, if possible.
At the conference where Ahsan Iqbal made his presentation, he invited input from different stakeholders, the private sector, analysts, economists and think tanks. The planning commission, he said, would hire experts in the relevant fields.
“To me, it is a joke, but a very cruel one. No one was expecting wonders from Ahsan Iqbal as minister for planning and development. Reviving the economy would be difficult even for the brightest of bright economists, given the complications,” an economist nursing the ambition to head the planning commission said privately.
“With all his attributes, the mild-mannered politician is not cut out for the job. His chances to succeed, if at all, rest on his ability to create an intellectual support infrastructure to feed him with ideas and strategies,” he added.
“Economics is a science of trade-offs. A pool of economists can help the government to set the priorities straight. The role of the planning minister is then to keep whispering them to the PM,” a top notch economist of the country told this writer from Switzerland over phone.
“My fear is that the planning commission lacks the professional capacity to deliver plans and visions,” said Pervez Tahir, a former chief economist of the planning commission. He said there was also a question mark on the planning commission itself, as to what extent it had the authority to work after the 18th amendment in the constitution.
Meanwhile, the hike in tax rates has yet to translate into higher revenue collection, despite all the shuffling of officers in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). One wonders if the government even considered the impact of raising taxes on growth prospects.
The clearing of Rs500 billion circular debt of the energy sector also did not produce the expected results. The energy crisis largely persists, and the PM has declared that the situation will take PML-N’ whole term to improve.
The budget proposals have put in motion the inflation spiral, confirms data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. After easing to 5.1 per cent in May 2013, inflation has risen to 8.3 per cent in August — a 3.2 per cent hike in the first two months of the current government, which should ring alarm bells in Islamabad.
The currency is loosing value and the rupee has slid to Rs103 to a dollar in the open market. The monthly average exchange rate, according to State Bank data, was Rs98.3 to a dollar in April 2013. The meltdown of the foreign reserves and the perpetual imbalance in external payments carries the risk of sovereign default.
“The situation is not going to play out well for the man on the street dodging threats to his livelihood and struggling to make both ends meet. So far, the private sector has shown greater tolerance for revenue measures for the goodwill PML N enjoys among the business community,” said an economist.
“It will turn really ugly if they get antagonised and start reacting to the government moves. With society divided on all conceivable lines, another misstep by the government may worsen the economic situation,” he concluded.
Vision 2025 for Mariam and hamza Sharif. Greeb phir bhee cake na dainy paar jutian kha'ay ga.
Re: Vision 2025 : Pakistan
An archive for development visions - DAWN.COM
The Planning Commission of Pakistan seems to be a great place for producing wonderful documents, plans and visions for the future, whether or not these are tested in the real world.
**Dozens of annual plans, a series of five-year plans, perspective plans, frameworks and then strategic ‘visions’ keep on adding to the richness of its library.
Starting with 1950, Pakistan’s policymakers prepared and implemented about nine five-year plans, with varying degrees of success and failure, followed by a Medium Term Development Framework (2004-07) introduced by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz. The 10th five-year plan (2010-15) was shelved in May 2010 just ahead of its formal launch, and was replaced by the Framework for Economic Growth, which too did not take off.**
The annual plans and the five-year plans like the 1965-88 Perspective Plan, the Vision 2010, the 2003-13 Perspective Plan, and the Vision 2030, generally followed broader and longer-term development goals, ostensibly to protect national priorities irrespective of political changes. Their objectives, however, remained elusive.
**In a majority of the immediate, short, medium and longer-term plans and visions, seldom was any productive stock-taking done to see their level of achievement, the reasons for their failures.
In the process, however, the planning commission witnessed a steady decline in its role as a planning body, and failed to guide the political leadership about the challenges and steer the country out of low-growth cycles. It deteriorated to the extent of becoming a subordinate body of the finance ministry, approving PC-1 papers and allocating funds on the directions of the finance minister or the chief executives.
But now empowered with a full-fledged ministry and renamed as the ‘planning, development and reforms commission,’ it is reviving the tradition of five-year plans and perspective plans, albeit with fresh jargon. It has started working on the ‘Development Strategy 2013-18,’ with a focus on ‘Strong Economy - Strong Pakistan’. Simultaneously, the consultation process has just begun for formulating the ‘Vision 2025’.**
Major themes of the Vision 2025 include an integrated energy plan, modernisation of infrastructure, mobilisation of indigenous resources, institutional reforms and governance, value addition in production sectors, export and private sector-led growth, and exploitation of social capital.
Some independent stakeholders, however, question if the ambitious reforms envisaged in the development strategy and the Vision 2025 are possible in an environment of devolution and bureaucratic hassle. The proposed plan was seen with some skepticism by economists and experts, who did not see a supportive (also inefficient) bureaucracy taking the process forward to the implementation stage — one of the most challenging tasks in the country’s history — as they referred to a number of past failed experiences
Reiterating a narrative of former deputy chairman planning commission Dr Nadeem ul Haque, planning minister Ahsan Iqbal argues that so far the emphasis had been ‘on building hardware by compromising the soft side of development’. The government would make policies to promote education, increase health facilities, reduce poverty, and harness the potential of the youth for making a progressive Pakistan, he added.
**Former economic adviser and dean at the National University of Science and Technology Dr Ashfaq Hassain Khan wondered if all ministries and divisions of the government had been taken on board for such a vision, which envisages cross-cutting themes for the entire public sector.
He said past initiatives failed because of resistance from the bureaucracy, and hence the prime minister should have spearheaded the Vision 2025 to give a strong message to all bureaucrats that the government was serious about moving forward on the reform process.
Dr Khan also wondered how the federal government could implement such a serious plan in an environment of devolution, and whether the provinces would be ready to adopt it. He said the provincial representatives and the Council of Common Interest should also be part of the plan. There is also a serious issue of capacity at the planning commission, which has seen years of decay. It lacks quality manpower.
Former minister and industrialist Abdul Razaq Dawood suggested encouraging Pakistani corporations to invest abroad, instead of talking all the time about foreign direct investment. Investment by Pakistanis abroad would market the country’s corporate image abroad and bring back best international business practices.**
Meanwhile, the five-year development strategy aims to achieve all possible wishes.
It calls for stabilising the economy through minimising the fiscal deficit, adopting self-reliance, focusing on tax reforms, increasing investments, reviving the economy for balanced and sustainable growth, promoting the private sector, and transforming productive sectors towards value addition through innovation, enhancing quality and productivity.
It also seeks to achieve energy security by addressing the energy crisis and inefficiencies, adding cheap power to the national grid, and replacing expensive dependence on fuel oil with cheaper alternatives to provide affordable energy to citizens through an integrated energy policy. It plans on building modern infrastructure for a high growth economy that would serve as a corridor and hub of regional trade through efficient transport networks, by reducing production and transaction costs for providing a stimulus to economic growth.
The strategists also wish to restore peace and security. They hope to improve security by initiating various social and entrepreneurial programmes in underdeveloped areas, and wish to achieve good governance through institutional and governance reforms.
Meanwhile, some other experts also believe that while planning for the future, the policymakers should also consider acquisition of natural resources in Africa and other possible locations by encouraging corporations both in the public and private sector to make joint ventures and take ownership of energy resources wherever possible.
The development strategy’s success would generally depend on a strong champion who could take the planning process to the implementation stage; remove bottlenecks and resistance, and give a big push to the cross-cutting reform process. The realisation of even half of the targets would not be a mean achievement after all.
