Federal Minister for Planning, Ahsan Iqbal Thursday underlined the need for sustained growth of 7-8 percent to create job opportunities for the growing youth population as this would be great challenge for the country in coming years. Speaking at the 31st Annual General Meeting and Conference organized by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) on the topic of "effective strategies for transformational growth:vision-2025," Ahsan Iqbal said that providing job opportunities to huge number of youth would be a great challenge for the country.
This challenge can only be addressed by achieving sustained growth rate of around 8 percent. "There is a need to maximize growth through productivity gains," he said adding that Vision-2025 envisages competitive and knowledge based economy for moving on path to high growth rate.
Iqbal gave an overview of the growth patterns in the country and how the government wants to transform it. The minister maintained this is the right time to shift the focus from exogenous factors to internal drivers of growth emphasising on resource mobilisation, investment and exports.
He said that the growth patterns of the past were non-participatory and created disparity as a result the country had to pay heavy cost especially in terms of physical dismemberment. The government vision of 2025 takes into account all these challenges and addresses all significant areas through an ecosystem aided by seven pillars and grounded on five enablers.
The Minister particularly laid emphasis on human resource development and informed that the present government is investing heavily in education, health and social sector to repair the fractured social platform due to the ill-conceived policies of the past regimes especially martial law governments, which diverted the funds from social sector to security related fields. The Minister said that political stability, social harmony, continuation and consistency in policies are key ingredients for sustainable economic growth, which have now luckily taken roots in the country after peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to other and the continuity in the policies.
About the economic recovery country made in last two and half years, the western media which was terming Pakistan as most dangerous place in the world in 2013 is now stating Pakistan as new emerging success story 2015 in sharp contrast to image of the country being the "most dangerous place in the world" in 2013.
Ahsan declared that ground breaking ceremony of Diamer-Bhasha Dam would take place next year to ensure energy and water security. On Sustained Development Goals (SDGs) Ahsan Iqbal said the government is committed to achieving SDGs by considering them as national development goals. The Minister called for working harder, better and smarter so that Pakistan is placed among top twenty five economies of the world by 2025.
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