Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has announced his decision to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, an annual event held end January to early February, and is attended by not only heads of government and finance ministers but also by Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and business leaders.
Past attendance at this forum has shown that it does not provide a mechanism to generate official (public sector) assistance though it can assist in forging of economic/business ties at the level of the private sector, and, therefore, is regarded as an appropriate forum to attract foreign private sector investment.
Pakistani heads of state and government have rarely missed a single year and have begun to regard Davos as an annual winter yatra undertaken with large entourages inclusive of ministers, a smattering of the private sector and family members. The website of the WEF notes that this year, over 2,500 participants from the business, political and cultural communities will address the Annual Meeting's overall theme - Shaping the Post-Crisis World.
The list includes forty-two heads of state and government including Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. The theme for the current year is managing the current economic crisis and shaping the entire post-crisis agenda, from economic reform to climate change. The programme includes looking at the challenges of sustainability and development, and catalysing the next wave of growth through innovation, science and technology.
The obvious question is: how does Pakistan fit in with the 2009 theme? The country's economic managers have been at pains to inform the public that the current economic malaise is entirely attributable to the Musharraf era; and that our economic problems are not due to the global financial crisis that much of the rest of the world, integrated into the global economy unlike ours, is currently suffering from.
This partly explains why the International Monetary Fund has noted in its website that while it is supporting an interest rate cut in other countries it is supporting the reverse in Pakistan: "in Pakistan's case, a tightening of monetary policy is necessary to restore confidence in the Pakistani rupee, help rebuild international reserves, and ensure that the domestic financing requirement of the government is met through market placements of government securities.
To this end, higher interest rates are needed." If one adds the security issues in Pakistan it is fairly evident that this is not the time for the head of government to take a trip abroad with or without a large delegation.
It is fairly evident that Gilani will neither be able to generate financial support from other countries at the forum, support that we are still awaiting and were told would be a consequence of the IMF 7.6 billion dollar package, nor, indeed, be able to generate private sector interest in Pakistan. In marked contrast Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have already indicated their inability to attend.
The proposed Indian delegation, still awaiting the green signal from the Prime Minister's office, is lean and mean or, in other words, consists of a relevant handful namely former Finance now Home Minister Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and the chief ministers of Delhi, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. One can only hope that Prime Minister Gilani revisits his trip to Davos and decides to send five or six relevant people involved with economic policy making.
Comments
Comments are closed.