News: Support fund aims at building capacity of future business leaders
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Date of publication: Thursday, March 20 , 2008

Karachi: The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) as the partner institution of World Economic Forum (WEF) carrying out the Executive opinion Survey (EOS) 2008 in Pakistan for the Global competitiveness Report 2008-9.

A statement here on Wednesday that the CSF, a joint initiative the United States Agency for International Development (USAlD) and the Finance Ministry, Government of Pakistan, has proposed a unique stretegy to the World Economic Forum to engage the academia in conducting the Executive Opinion Surveys.

It said that by doing so, CSF aims at building the capacity of the future business leaders who will soon be joining the business community and help create a group of business leaders who would be sensitized on the importance of Global Competitiveness Index (GC!), the Global Competitiveness Report's 12 pil' lars and the role of business com' munity in measuring the GCl.

Through this exercise, the students would also be provided with the opportunity to interact with the leading CEOs of the country and create industry academia linkage across Pakistan.

As part of the strategy and implementation process, CSF on Wednesday held an interactive session at Iqra University, Karachi, 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 World Economic Forum and benchmarks 131 economies over the 12 competitiveness pillars,

Amir Jahangir from the Competitiveness Support Fund informed the students and the faculty members that Pakistan ranked 92 out of 131 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index and elaborated the issues concern' ing Pakistan's competitiveness.

He further added that the CSF strategy had also been appreciated by the Harvard Business School and is being considered to being one of the most innovative strategies from any of the 153 World Economic Forum partner institutes.

CSF also shared that once this exercise is successfully completed, it carries the potential of being implemented across the other WEF partner institutes in 130 member countries, which will prove to be a milestone for Pakistan's collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

The statement further pointed out that the CSF shared that the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) has been the World Economic Forum's flagship publica tion and is widely recognized as the world's leading cross'country comparator of factors affecting economic competitiveness and growth.

The Executive Opinion Survey is a major component of the Global Competitiveness Report and pro' vides the key component that turns the Report into a representative annual measure of a coun' try'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.

Fahd Ali Raza, Head of Department for Business Administration at Iqra University and one of the faculty members leading the student group for this very prestigious exercise described this as an important initiative to promote competitiveness relevant issues as research topics at the higher academic level.

He appreciated CSF for developing such an innovative strategy with a focus on academia in Pakistan and stated would also help the acad developing stronger with the business sect bridge the gaps.

CSF will be interactir other leading economic and journalism schools Pakistan to create a net more then 100 students arty members to assist CSF out the Executive ( Survey from January to M~ Support for

CSF is part 1. 5 billion in aid that Government is provid Pakistan over five years to i economic growth, educatior. and governance.-APP