5-year plan projects 7pc growth rate

[xenia]

Focus on human development Ambitious 5-year plan projects 7pc growth rate​

ISLAMABAD, May 13: The government has finalised the 10th fiveyear plan (2010-15) which envisages an economic growth rate of seven per cent, wheat output of 30 million tons, increase in literacy to 65 per cent and a reduction in incidence of poverty from 30 to 13 per cent by 2015.
A summary of the plan acquired by Dawn suggests that the main focus of the strategy is to move gradually but decisively towards greater investment in people — by increasing the share of total expenditures both public and private — in education, health and improving people’s living standard as defined under the millennium development goals.

The plan would be released with the federal budget next month.

Economic tensions
The broader objective of the plan “is to address the underlying social and economic tensions that are now strongly coming to the surface in the form of rising poverty, stubborn persistence of inflation, deteriorating employment situation and rising inter-provincial disparity”.

It will also take into account the economic cost of the military operations to clear areas infested with terrorists and extremists as well as plan for reconstruction of the areas.

The planners concede that disparities among the provinces and various segments of society have increased over the past few years and, therefore, seek to clearly demarcate development activities between the federal and provincial governments as well as between the provincial and local levels.

“Vertical programmes that are clearly provincial subjects like health and education will be implemented by the provinces. The role of the federation in the areas would be restricted to ensure quality and ensure basic standards across provinces.” As such, the government plans to increase adult literacy rate from the current 58 per cent to 65 per cent in 2015 and net primary enrolment from 74 per cent to 100 per cent. Technical education as percentage of enrolment at secondary level would be increased from three to eight per cent by 2015.

Paradigm shift
The government says that the development paradigm would see a fundamental change under the five-year plan in which ordinary people, especially those in underdeveloped provinces and regions, would be at the centre of development process.

To realise this, resources would be directed to accelerate growth in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan and underdeveloped areas in other provinces.

The plan envisages reducing infant mortality rate from 65 to 40 per 1,000 live births in five years and maternal mortality rate from 250 to 140 per 100,000 live births.

The coverage of lady health workers is planned to be increased to 100 per cent in five years from the current 90 per cent.

For the first time, the issue of terrorism has been taken care of in the plan as the government plans to confront extremism through broad-based socio-economic development and by laying a foundation for just and equitable development.

Poverty reduction
The plan seeks to ensure that gains of economic growth result in poverty reduction which will require that growth results in the creation of productive, remunerative and decent employment. “Moreover, growth would need to develop those sectors where the poor live and work, especially in rural areas”.

The plan takes into account the allocations under the three-year medium-term budgetary framework (201013) and 9-point economic reforms agenda announced by former finance minister Shaukat Tarin and hopes to increase agricultural growth rate of 4.8 per cent in five years from current year’s 3.6 per cent.

The government expects the industry to grow at the rate of 9.2 per cent instead of 2.3 per cent now and services to grow at the rate of 6.4 per cent in 2015 from 3.7 per cent in 2010.It says the wheat production that is estimated at 25 million tons in 2010 would increase to 30 million tons in 2015 while rice output would reach 7.5 million tons in five years from 5.9 million tons this year.

Likewise, cotton production is estimated to increase from the current 13.4 million bales to 20.7 million bales in 2015.

The plan envisages manufacturing growth rate of 8.5 per cent in 2015 from the current 2.8 per cent.

Of this, large-scale manufacturing is expected to increase from one per cent to 9.5 per cent in five years while services sector would grow at the rate of 6.4 per cent from the present 3.7 per cent.

This will be supported by 6.9 per cent growth rate in wholesale and retail trade and 9.5 per cent in financial and insurance sector compared with the present 3.5 per cent and one per cent, respectively.

The five-year plan identifies resource mobilisation, security situation and energy crisis as top constraints to growth and aims to overcome energy shortages through controlling circular debt, better management of scarce energy to protect productive sectors, getting maximum capacity from IPPs, conservation and importing liquefied natural gas.

It plans to improve transportation infrastructure.