“Pakistan focusing on competitiveness for long-term economic growth”

ISLAMABAD, May 15, 2006 - Pakistan is hosting jointly with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) the Asian Regional Conference of The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) to foster competitiveness, economic growth, poverty reduction and private enterprise. The conference will also provide a platform for the Government of Pakistan to present its "second generation reforms" and other initiatives to build on recent economic growth to achieve sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

Minister of State for Finance, Omar Ayub Khan said that government is focusing on the development of infrastructure, energy and human resource development to sustain and further improve the GDP growth rate of 8.4 percent achieved during the last financial year. He was speaking at the occasion of pre-conference workshop of the "Benchmarking Pakistan’s Global Competitiveness", which is scheduled to be started on Monday (15 May 2006). Besides delegates from various countries and especially from South Asia, the President of the Competitiveness Institute (TCI) Barcelona, Lars Ekland, Mr. Jonahatan Addleton, Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development, Director General of the Swedish Innovation Agency, Per Ericksson, President of Cluster Navigators Ltd, Mr. Ifor FFowcs-Williams of New Zealand, the Chief Executive of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) Arthur Bayhan, t, Kevin Murphy, president of J.E Austin, USA and others were also present on this occasion.

Omar Ayub Khan told the audience that the government has established the Competitive Support Fund (CSF) in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as a platform for innovation and competitiveness in Pakistan. He added that the objective of CSF was to catch up the progress made in various countries on innovation and competitiveness to propel the economic growth, enhance the quality production and create better employment opportunities for youth in the country.

On the occasion, Jonathan Addleton, Mission Director, USAID also made a speech and informed the audience that, The United States, through USAID, is providing more than $1.5 billion in development assistance to Pakistan over the next five years to improve education, health, governance and economic growth. USAID has also contributed a grant of US$ 12 million to the Government of Pakistan for the Competitiveness Support Fund.

CSF through its financial facilities will develop appropriate instruments to upgrade the competitiveness of the economy and promote overall competitiveness in Pakistan, which will boost the economic growth and create better employment, the Minister added. He added further that Pakistan now faces an urgent need to ensure the competitiveness of its enterprises and to promote innovation to grow its economy and create the conditions for the economic well being of its citizens in the future.

The technical assistance facility of the Fund will help the research institutions to support ventures; provide support for technological business incubators, and promote knowledge based enterprise start ups. It will further promote venture capital and support the creation of a stable, business viable legal framework, he added. Speaking on the occasion, President of TCI Lars Eklund said that Pakistan has a lot of potentials to further improve its competitiveness.

Earlier, Mr. Ifor ffowcs Williams, member of the Board of Advisers and President of Cluster Navigators Ltd. New Zealand gave a detailed presentation and emphasized on the need of cluster building according to global value chain of competitiveness. Rashid A Bajwa, CEO, National Rural Support Program, during another useful presentation highlighted the potential of Dairy Industry of Pakistan and said that efforts to develop this sector would be resulted as significant poverty reduction from the country and would help raising living standards of the people of Pakistan --

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About The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF)

The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) grows out of a benchmarking exercise that identified a gap in Pakistan’s efforts to become more competitive: the need for a vehicle to finance and support interventions that drive innovation, promote cluster development, establish linkages between academia and industry, encourage formation of innovative business incubator programs and venture capital, promote knowledge based enterprise development, create better jobs and boost innovation-driven long-term economic growth.

The principal objective of CSF is to: 1. Promote knowledge- based enterprise start-ups and increase the productivity of the country’s enterprises, 2. Enhance the quality of the services and create new and better job opportunities, 3. Improve regulatory framework for viable business environment, and 4. Reinforce innovation-driven economic growth.

About the TCI Regional Conference on Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Asia, 14 – 16 May, 2006 in Islamabad

Islamabad is the host of TCI Regional Conference on Competitiveness and Economic Growth for Asia and Pacific from May 14 - 16, 2006: Benchmarking Pakistan's Global Competitiveness. The conference is organized by the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), which is jointly supported by the Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and under the Auspices of The Competitiveness

Support Fund.
For more information on conference, please visit http://www.competitiveness.org/article/articleview/752/1/10/

About The Competitiveness Institute (TCI)
www.competitiveness.org

TCI is a global professional body with members in 40 nations and a network of the competitiveness experts and cluster practitioners worldwide. The TCI network provides a valuable resources for all triple helix actors with exchange of ideas, best practice and know-how regarding methodologies for economic growth. The Board of the TCI composes the well known innovation competitiveness individuals, including Prof. Michael Porter and Prof. Michael Enright. TCI's mission is to promote innovation-driven economic growth by fostering cluster-based development initiatives throughout the world.