The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Nadeem ul Haque, said here on Monday that new growth strategy, with innovative approach, would be finalised in three months, when consultative process, which is underway at present, would get completed.
He was speaking at a 'one-day consultative workshop on growth strategy for Pakistan', organised by Centre for Public Policy & Governance (CPPG), in collaboration with the Planning Commission. Leading economists, academia and students attended the consultative workshop.
Prominent among them were Dr Peter Amacost, Shahid Kardar, Dr Ijaz Nabi, and Mehmud Mirza. The Chairman of CPPG, Dr Saeed Shafqat, in his introductory remarks posed two important questions including growth strategy for what and whether a sustainable development is possible in present awkward circumstances. Dr Haque in his address pointed out that Pakistan has been witnessing spells of development throughout its history, as foreign funds-driven growth takes place for some years and then it collapses despite the fact that the potential growth rate in Pakistan economy is 5 to 6 percent of the GDP.
According to him, time has come to extend serious importance to the subject in the backdrop of announcement of NFC Award and passage of the 18th amendment. "This is the right time to think about long-term development goals," he stressed. He presented a brief overview of last 60 years' development strategies, right from simple approach of the 50s, which was followed by formation of proper committees and working groups on it.
However, he asserted that Dr Mehboob ul Haque model was being followed by the policy makers religiously till date, when industrialists were considered to be champions of development in the country. But today they are crying for shortage of energy on the one hand and high interest rate on the other, though they have contributed little when energy was sufficiently available to the country and the interest rate regime was also well attractive, he added.
"Our approach is totally hardware-focused, and we have been thinking in terms of projects, buildings and bridges with Public Sector Development Programme at the centre stage."
However, he added that there was no increase in per capita income for last three years, and constant damage to the economy may further hinder growth ahead. He said that the Planning Commission was deliberating upon the situation over the last three months and a consensus was being evolved that "there is a need of shifting focus from Haque Model to a new innovative model". "From hardware to software growth approach can only work, which means a good management will high rate of efficiency," he said, adding that "the hardware growth approach has left us with a number of unattended consequences, very much visible in the Haque model."
Explaining his point of view, he said that it was because of the hardware approach "that we have lost quality of governance, competitiveness, and we have been trying to do too many things at a time while permanently overlooking the ongoing projects".
He said: "We have tried to build huge economy on the basis of per capita income of $1000 and in our push for industrialisation we have chosen certain favourites against the orphans being neglected out of the whole process. "We have turned into mimics as we are simply copying models making us un-innovative, while only innovation would drive future growth."
Dr Haque said that the scope of debate, 'a new development approach', under consideration at present, "is being extended to the academia and civil society" in order to get larger input. "Planning Commission is trying to develop a common vision of growth strategy by initiating consultative process for the next three months, followed by formal talks with provinces," he said.
He said the new growth strategy would be adopted by the Federal Cabinet formally when the consultative process is completed in the next three months. On this occasion, Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Dr Haroon Sarwar, Ms Sana Shahid and Umair Ahmed and Hanna Ishaq also made presentations and raised useful comments and queries in response to presentations.