The Government is endeavouring to make Planning Commission (PC) a Knowledge House, which would lead Policy Intervention Strategies and introduce a new culture of learning through sharing. This was stated by the Secretary Planning Sohail Safdar while inaugurating the Ninth Annual conference of South Asian Network of Economic Research Institutes (Sanei) here on Monday.
The Secretary in his address emphasised the need for larger co-operation in South Asian region through learning from each others' experiences in research and development. He said Pakistan Governments has introduced a number of innovative initiatives in direct incomes support and expanded financing for grass root programmes which would set a fine precedence for other regional partners.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor PIDE Dr Rashid Amjad in his welcome address said the recent global oil price shock has once again ignited inflation to very high unbearable rates and threatened economic growth and derailed measures to reduce poverty and protect the vulnerable groups. A major challenge, is to maintain fiscal policy balance, dampen inflationary pressure and to sustain growth to the extent that the former two objectives allow and most important of all put in place affordable safety nets to protect the poor vulnerable groups.
All this requires prudent economic management rather than knee-jerk reactions or strong hammer blows without thinking through the consequence which some economic financial mangers sadly resort to during this time. If Sanei through research could contribute to this debate it would indeed go a long way in achieving its objective of "bridging the gap between the development of knowledge and policy making."
The conference attended by world renowned professors and economists. Paper were presented by Professor Siddiq-ur-Rehman of Osmani University of Ulster UK, Dr Niti Mehta Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research Ahmedabad India, Professor M Ali Khan, Shanti Sapkota, Professor T N Srinivasan, Professor Aparajita Mukherjee and Dr K P Viswanath. The two-day conference will conclude on Tuesday.-PR
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