Karachi, October 26th: The third meeting of the National Policy Platform for Competitiveness & Economic Growth (NPPCEG) was held in Karachi today. The meeting was chaired by prominent economist Shahid Javed Burki and was attended by stakeholders from all four provinces of Pakistan from the public and private sectors as well as academia. The National Policy Platform is an initiative of the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) which has successfully brought the private, public and academic leadership together on the platform under the chairmanship of Shahid Javed Burki.

CSF is a joint initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan established to position Pakistan’s economy on a more global competitive footing.

Today, the NPPCEG chairman, Mr. Shahid Javed Burki once again piloted the discussion on the need for determining an appropriate model of growth for Pakistan, highlighting the parameters and framework of various models through time and currently in place in other countries.

Mr. Burki described the crises though which Pakistan is passing today as the “perfect storm”, adding that it is not only the rise of extremism that threatens the country but economic woes as well. The NPPCEG chairman stressed that Pakistan’s policymakers have to revive a badly faltering economy, while those active in the political field must provide the country with a durable political structure – a structure that gives prominence to the voice of the people. He emphasized that Pakistan must also make an effort to gain a presence in the international economic system, as the system is getting restructured with growing importance of large emerging economies in the policymaking process.

Mr. Burki noted that terrorism is costing the country a great deal. He said in the 2009 Annual Report issued by the Institute of Public Policy, this cost was estimated at Rs. 380 billion, in terms of both the direct and indirect impact on the economy. In today’s prices and exchange rate this is equivalent to 3 per cent of the gross domestic product.

Alleviating urban poverty, he said, it is an issue that needs the urgent attention of policy makers both in the Central Government as well as in the Provincial Administrations. Mr. Burki pointed out that the poverty situation has worsened in the large cities in particular. The large transfer of income from the urban to rural areas, as a result of the positive change in the terms of trade for agriculture has helped the agricultural sector, but the rest of the economy has stagnated.

He said Islamabad must make a serious attempt to restructure the economy in order to place it on firmer foundations while putting the sectors that provide employment to the poor at the forefront. An important part of this effort should be to develop Pakistani firms in sectors that have the capacity to provide employment to the poor; who don’t necessarily have a highly developed skill base.

Concluding, Mr. Burki said the Karachi meeting of the NPPCEG was particularly important as it served to highlight some of the problem a city of this size faces in Pakistan. “We don’t have the analytical capacity to do serious work on the country’s urban areas – on urban economy, on the social systems in large cities, on the interaction between city governments and provincial administrations, and on urban political systems.”

Mr. Arthur Bayhan, Chief Executive Officer of the Competitiveness Support Fund, said: “Pakistan, with its increasing economic challenges, requires that the issues impacting the competitiveness of the economy are those which are tackled on an immediate basis. We believe that the best outcomes can be achieved when we coordinate across a broad continuum of stakeholders and donors. By combining our efforts with those of multiple organizations, we can improve the economic health of Pakistan”.

Mr. Bayhan spoke about the relevance of the NPPCEG to CSF’s Activities and said the objectives of the two were intertwined. “Making growth competitive, equitable and sustainable is no small task. It requires a carefully orchestrated institutional and policy coordination through broad-based participation of all the key stakeholders. In this respect the National Policy Platform has been very successful,” he said.

Mr. Bayhan went on to say that the NPPCEG’s approach towards highlighting policy impediments to economic growth would provide invaluable insights in to how to overcome constraints to Pakistan’s socio-economic development.

Ms. Naheed Shah Durrani spoke about Sindh development policies and the need for analytical work. “The province of Sindh is ripe for development work and the scope of this is not undoable,” she said, going to add “there is a dire need for the right type of analytical work. The combination of the two could have a positive impact on Sindh’s economy.

A similar talk was delivered by Mr. Khalid Ikram on the development of development polices in the Punjab and analytical work thereof.

Mr. Omar Saeed stressed on the importance of analytical work in the private sector while Dr. Shaukat Ali Brah gave an interesting perspective into the national challenges of the energy sector. Dr. Aisha Ghaus-Pasha concluded proceedings with a study on financing of firms.

The institution of the NPPCEG was established in the wake of the unprecedented economic crisis faced by the country. 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 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 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 will also give broad-based support to the development of an appropriate public policy framework.

At its initial meeting held in March 2009, the NPPCEG chairman identified 12 priority areas of strategic intervention. He had emphasized areas of specific attention included, 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; pension funds; developing a supporting legal framework; and technological backwardness.