The finance minister Asad Umar appears to be upbeat insofar as the PTI government's performance in the first half of fiscal year 2018-19 is concerned. Speaking to television anchors the other day, he has reportedly said that due to corrective measures introduced by the current government for bringing stabilization in national economy, the economic indicators have started showing resilience.
It is quite unfortunate that he has not dilated much on country's economic growth rate as the World Bank has already projected a major economic slowdown in the country during the current fiscal year. He needs to answer the question: how could the government effectively alleviate poverty in the absence of a higher growth rate in a developing country? One of the key factors behind China's feat of lifting over 600 million people out of poverty in a span of a few decades was the country's very high economic growth rate. Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now Xi Jinping never lost sight of criticality of higher economic growth rate.