News: CSF to engage academia in Executive Opinion Survey
Name of Newspaper: The Nation
Date of Publication: Saturday, 01 March, 2008
URL:

MAQSOOD TIRMIZI

ISLAMABAD - The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) would engage the academia in conducting Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) 2008 in Pakistan for the Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.

T~e Competitiveness Support Fund, ajoint initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)and the Ministry of Finance has proposed a strategy to the World EconomicForum to engage the academia in conducting the executive opinion surveys.

The CSFheld an interactive session with the Economics Department at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, to engage the faculty members and the students for this exercise. The meeting included discussions on the Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008, which is published each year by the WEFand benchmarks 131economies over the 12 competitive pillars.

Amir Jahangir from the CSF informed the students and the faculty members that Pakistan ranked 92 out of 131 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index. He further elaborated the issues concerning Pakistan's competitiveness. The CSF has adopted the approach of engaging the academia in developing and implementing the EOSstrategy, which will be creating platforms for industry-academia linkage.

The CSFshared that the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) has been the World Economic Forum's flagship publication since 1979 and is widely recognised.

The Executive Opinion Survey is a major component ofThe Global Competitiveness Report and provides the key component that turns the report into a representative annual measure of a country's economic environment and its ability to achieve sustained growth. Top-level business executives operating in Pakistan will be surveyed to capture their'opinion on the business environment in which they operate.

Dr Muhammad Ishfaq, Assistant Professor, Quaid-e-Azam University and one of the faculty members leading the programme at the Economics Department, described this as an important initiative to promote competitiveness relevant issues as research topics at the higher academic level. The CSF will be interacting with other leading economic,business and journalism schools across Pakistan to create a network of more then 100 students and faculty members to assist CSF in carrying out the Executive opinion survey from January to May 2008.