Acts of terrorism cost Pakistan $126.79 billion in last 17 years

27 Apr, 2018

During the last 17 years, the direct and indirect cost incurred by Pakistan due to incidents of terrorism amounted to US $126.79 billion. According to Economic Survey 2017-18, total cost incurred in 2017-18 is Rs 223.32 billion as compared to Rs 572.60 billion in 2016-17. However, the highest cost - Rs 2037.33 billion - incurred by Pakistan was in 2010-11 due to terrorism.
According to the survey, terrorism declined by 15.7 percent during 2016-17, while it further declined during July-February 2017-18 by 62.2 percent which clearly reflects the effectiveness of the government's efforts to eliminate terrorism and extremism from the country.
After facing protracted violence for more than a decade, Pakistan has achieved progressive and significant improvement in the country's overall security landscape in recent years, the survey stated. This has been achieved primarily due to comprehensive counterterrorism operations Zarb-e-Azb and Khyber-I-IV operations and counter-terrorism measures taken by the government under the framework of the National Action Plan (NAP), and the sacrifices of the security forces.
The survey further stated that Pakistan's success in countering terrorism has been acknowledged in the recent Global Terrorism Index Report 2017 published by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace. According to this report, Pakistan ranked at 5th out of 163 countries with a score of 8.4 out of 10 on the Index, a marked improvement as it had been ranked 4th in 2007. Pakistan has shown improvement in its global terrorism index ranking with decline in the terrorism incidences and the deaths related to the terrorist activities.

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