News: Pakistan improves modestly in global Competitiveness Rankings: Omar
Name of the Newspaper: The Statesman
Date of publication: Friday, Sep 29, 2006

ISLAMABAD: The World Economic Forum, in its newly released Global Competitiveness Report 2006, finds that Pakistan has improved its competitiveness rankings among over 120 countries ranked by the report.

This was stated by Minister of State for Finance and Chairman of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), Omar Ayub Khan while addressing a press conference here this afternoon.

The Minister of State for Finance was flanked by Director Competitive support Fund (CSF) Arthur Bayhan.

He said that the economic policies followed constantly under the dynamic leadership of President General Pervez Muharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have started bearing fruits now.

Omar Ayub Khan said that few years back the size of Pakistan’s economy was only US $ 62 million and today it stood at US $ 125 million which almost doubled.

He added that as a result of the improved economy the tax base and tax to GDP ratio has also increased to 9.6 percent.

He added that the government plans to further enhance the tax to GDP ratio to 12 percent through tax machinery upgradation.

“We have introduced Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) three year ago to facilitate the tax payers and broadening the tax base”, he remarked. Omar Ayub Khan said that the World Economic Forum presents two competitiveness rankings-the Business Competitiveness Index (BCI) and the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI).

He added that Pakistan had a relatively good showing on the BCI, developed by Harvard Business School competitiveness expert, Dr. Michael Porter.