ISLAMABAD, March 25, 2009: The first meeting of the National Policy Platform for Competiveness and Economic Growth (NPPCEG), a new initiative of the Competitive Support Fund (CSF), will be held on March 25 in Islamabad. The meeting will be inaugurated by Ms. Hina Rabbani Khar, State Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs and will be chaired by Mr. Shahid Javed Burki, Chairman of NPPCEG.

The meeting will discuss key policy issues as identified by Mr. Burki and CSF for analytical work and policy advice, each with enormous bearing on improving the competitiveness of the Pakistan’s economy and bolstering the prospects of growth.

NPPCEG members will offer feedback on the issues identified and suggest potential alternatives to be included. The members will select two issues to be the first issues addressed.

NPPCEG may also task participating institutions to conduct further public policy analyses on highlighted topics to be distributed prior to the Platform’s next meeting, at which time the results will be discussed, and concrete action recommendations will be prepared for the GOP.

The NPPCEG members are primarily renowned leaders of the public-private and academic sectors and include, among others Dr. Hafeez Pasha, Dr. Rehana Siddiqui, Dr. Ijaz Nabi, Amin Hashwani and Roshana Zafar.

The key policy issues to be discussed are: Demographic asymmetry and demographic window of opportunity; Human Resource Development; Construction Industry; Trade facilitation; Retail trade; Agricultural Marketing; Urbanization, urban employment and urban services; Fiscal decentralization and the use of fiscal policy for influencing inter-personal and inter-regional income distributions; Private health insurance; and Development Pension funds.

The institution of the NPPCEG comes in the wake of the unprecedented economic crisis the country is facing. It is the consequence of both long-enduring structural problems in the economy as well as a number of external shocks delivered to the economy in the last year. In order to tackle this situation the Government of Pakistan has set up a number of bodies that will assist it with analyzing and developing the appropriate public policy responses to the crisis.

The Government is working to assimilate the advice and information generated by these bodies into comprehensive public policy. However, given the difficult economic situation faced by the country which threatens the pace of economic growth, an innovative approach is needed. The proposed initiative is based on the belief that a continuous dialogue among different segments of society will not only improve the quality of public policy, but it will also give broad-based support to the public policy framework.

CSF is a joint initiative of the Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Finance and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), established to reposition Pakistan’s economy on a more globally competitive footing. USAID’s support for CSF is part of the $2.8 billion aid that the U.S. Government has provided to Pakistan since 2002 to improve economic growth, education, health, and governance and to reconstruct the earthquake-affected areas.