News: Govt Policies improve competitiveness: Omar
Name of the Newspaper: The Post
Date of publication: Friday, Sep 29, 2006

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Omar Ayub Khan said that due to government pragmatic steps in the economy, huge allocation in infrastructure, health and education has improved Pakistan's global competitiveness rankings.

Pakistan is placed among the poor performing countries in health and primary education at 108, and higher education and training at 104 place among the 125 economies of the world.

Speaking at a press conference called to brief the media about Pakistan Global Competitiveness Ranking for 2006 here at the finance ministry on Thursday, the minister said the investment is being made in infrastructure, education, and health to improve the ranking.

He said Pakistan has performed well in the new Business Competitiveness Index (BCI) of World Economic Forum by taking 67 place among 121 countries, only three levels below China.

To a question about the weak domestic regulatory system, he said the Monopoly Control Authority (MCA) is being revamped to make it a more competitive and effective body. A law to this effect is in the process and would soon be placed before the Parliament for the approval, he added.

Omar Ayub Khan said the recent reforms by the government have started registering gains, as according to the new methodology used by the World Economic Forum for the rankings, Pakistan scored relatively well for market efficiency at 54th place among 121 countries.

"More work needed to be done to improve the ranking of Pakistan, especially in education, human resource development, and expansion of business educational institutions", the minister said.

He said the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), which is a joint initiative of the finance ministry, and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is working closely with the World Economic Forum on the ranking of Pakistan as well as on identifying the areas to be improved and the methodologies that will bring about that improvement.

The Competitiveness Support Fund is also working with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to help create university/industry linkages to promote knowledge-based enterprise development in Pakistan. The Fund is developing the state of Pakistan's Competitiveness Report that goes into more detail on Pakistan's competitiveness.

Highlighting the significance of these reports, Omar Ayub Khan said that such rankings stimulate a productive dialogue between the government and citizens regarding important economic priorities. This dialogue is important because poverty reduction and economic growth will depend in the long-term on Pakistan's ability to be a competitive economy, he added.