Advantage of globalisation: Pakistan needs to act towards good governance

Inaamul Haq, a former Federal Secretary, has said that poverty could not be attacked without eliminating injustices and inequalities. "Poverty is intimately connected with tyranny; once you give people the exercise of freedom and equal opportunities, poverty would gradually go down the hill," he stressed.
We can attack poverty only when we learn to prioritise the principles of development economics, he added. Inaamul Haque, who has been associated with development policy formulation for 40 years, held that in the past the government had given priority to growth economics, which is necessary but not sufficient. There were rapid inequalities during period of rapid growth."
Speaking on the international implications of globalisation, which is irreversible, Inaamul Haq opined that "to take advantage of globalisation, Pakistan needs to act towards good governance instead of making speeches."
Inaamul Haque referred to the message implicit in a recent study said that Pakistan must do more for 80 percent or more of our working women who lived below the poverty line.
Inaamul Haq who was a former chairman of Export Promotion Board and also did a stint at the World Bank, was speaking in a seminar on 'Globalisation and International Dimensions of Development' held at the Pakistan Institute for Development Economics on Thursday. Dr Rehana Siddiqui, Director of PIDE, chaired the seminar held in the series 'Nurturing Our Minds.' Globalisation, which he said had become irreversible, has made underdeveloped countries conscious of dichotomies in the world.
An example of this could be sought in goods that were not manufactured at one place now. Instead, a number of components of the same goods were fabricated in several different countries.
The country has some responsibility to proceed with globalisation. 'You could not any thing substantial in the process without adopting good governance, or without fighting corruption. The state has to become a regulatory body. Inaamul Haque also gave tips for making substantial gain in the globalisation process, such as increase private capital inflows, take measures toward achieving national and international financial stability and improve investment climate to attract substantial international foreign investment.
As an illustration he referred to the case of IPPs. They were charging high cost for electricity because of faulty mechanism and also because investment climate was bad at that time.
In this regard he questioned foreign investment of the type of MacDonalds' and KFC,' which he pointed out was not the ideal type of investment. In this regard he cited the case of import of computers when the late Ghulam Ishaque Khan was the finance minister because the country was short of foreign exchange at that time and we had to import main frame of computers. Besides, GIK thought computers would increase unemployment.
Inaamul Haque thought trade was a key factor in poverty reduction and therefore, he put a lot of emphasis on Pakistan increasing trade, rather than depending on foreign aid.
However, Pakistan must fight high tariff barriers. Helpful laws were available to combat selective trade indulged in by the developed countries which charge a lot of tariff while exporting but give less to developing countries.
However, the Doha development agenda has at least given developing countries a sense of the lack of balance perpetrated in international trade imports by the developed countries. In conclusion, Inamul Haque suggested that the country needed autonomy in shaping a strong monetary policy and giving independent status to the State Bank.
'Things are changing now for the better, but there was a time when the State Bank Governor would be tied up with attending government meetings. He was also of the view that the financial position of the country had improved in the last ten years.
His concluding message to economists who were in the audience: Pakistan must step up its trade and do its best in removing trade barriers, and must adopt a vision, improve implementation gap to take advantage of the age of globalisation. 'To take advantage of globalisation Pakistan needs to act towards good governance instead of making speeches'.