Most indicators reflect substandard show

[MM_Haider]

Most indicators reflect substandard show – The Express Tribune

KARACHI:
In contrast to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s tall claims about his outstanding achievements in the outgoing fiscal year, most economic indicators show the performance by the poster child of the Nawaz administration has been less than exemplary.

Dar has indeed pulled a few rabbits out of his hat – such as bringing down the rupee-dollar exchange rate substantially – during his first year in office. While he remains steadfast in defending his one-year record in arguably the single most important federal ministry, let us take a brief look at some of the key economic indicators for 2013-14.

The government failed to achieve its target for the mother of all economic indicators – gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate – for 2013-14. With GDP growth rate expected to be 4.14% for the outgoing year, the government is going to miss its original target of 4.4%.

Nine-month provisional data shows the below-target performance is attributable to less-than-expected growth in agriculture and services sectors. More importantly, the 4.14% estimate is based on the budgeted public-sector development spending. However, the actual spending is going to be less than half of the allocation, which is likely to further reduce the GDP growth rate to 3.9%.

The government managed to keep fiscal deficit lower than its budgeted level during 2013-14. The government has revised it downwards to 5.7% from the budgeted 6.3% for the outgoing fiscal year. However, the decrease is mainly due to a less-than-budgeted development expenditure by central and provincial governments.

Taxing

As for revenue collection, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is going to miss the twice-revised target of Rs2.275 trillion in the outgoing fiscal year. Most analysts believe that, in addition to its organisational inefficiencies, the FBR’s underperformance has a lot to do with the government’s pandering to vested interests by means of tax exemptions offered via statutory regulatory orders (SROs).

Other targets

Similarly, annual targets for savings and investments as a percentage of GDP are also expected to be missed this year. In contrast with the target of 15.1% of the GDP, the share of investments in 2013-14 remained 14%. The savings-to-GDP ratio remained 13% in 2013-14 as opposed to the original target of 14%.

With regard to the current account deficit, SBP data shows it widened to $2.1 billion in July-April of 2013-14 as opposed to a deficit of $1.5 billion recorded in the comparable period of the preceding fiscal year, up 37.3% on a year-on-year basis.

The main reason for a widening current account deficit is the imbalance in the trade of services, whose deficit clocked up at $2.2 billion as opposed to a deficit of $1 billion in the corresponding 10 months of 2012-13.

The average CPI inflation for July-April has remained 8.7%, which is higher than the fiscal year’s target of 8%, according to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Inflation has been rather volatile in the outgoing fiscal year. It surged sharply in November and then declined for a few months to settle at 9.2% in April mainly because of unexpected movements in food prices and changes in administered prices.

Forex on the rise

Foreign exchange reserves held by the SBP have seen some positive improvements. They plunged to $3.1 billion in January from $5.2 billion at the beginning of the fiscal year, a drop of 38.8% in just seven months. But following the finance minister’s stern warnings to foreign currency hoarders, coupled with the issue of Eurobonds and sale of 3G/4G licences, SBP-held foreign exchange reserves started building up again. They have now risen to $8.3 billion, up 161.6% from January.

Despite many pronouncements by the finance minister about Pakistan’s re-emergence on the global investment map, foreign direct investment (FDI) has remained $750.9 million in the first 10 months of the outgoing fiscal year. This reflects a decrease of $111 million, or 13%, from the FDI recorded in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal year.

REPORTING BY KAZIM ALAM

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26th, 2014.

==========================================================================

That's why I always say that PMLN is mere propaganda without any substance .. that's it!.. They speend more money on advertisement than that of actual project!!! Propaganda League!!!

 

[Viper0011.]

Most indicators reflect substandard show – The Express Tribune

KARACHI:
Dar has indeed pulled a few rabbits out of his hat – such as bringing down the rupee-dollar exchange rate substantially – during his first year in office. While he remains steadfast in defending his one-year record in arguably the single most important federal ministry, let us take a brief look at some of the key economic indicators for 2013-14.

The government failed to achieve its target for the mother of all economic indicators – gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate – for 2013-14. With GDP growth rate expected to be 4.14% for the outgoing year, the government is going to miss its original target of 4.4%.

Nine-month provisional data shows the below-target performance is attributable to less-than-expected growth in agriculture and services sectors. More importantly, the 4.14% estimate is based on the budgeted public-sector development spending. However, the actual spending is going to be less than half of the allocation, which is likely to further reduce the GDP growth rate to 3.9%.
The main reason for a widening current account deficit is the imbalance in the trade of services, whose deficit clocked up at $2.2 billion as opposed to a deficit of $1 billion in the corresponding 10 months of 2012-13.
Despite many pronouncements by the finance minister about Pakistan’s re-emergence on the global investment map, foreign direct investment (FDI) has remained $750.9 million in the first 10 months of the outgoing fiscal year. This reflects a decrease of $111 million, or 13%, from the FDI recorded in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal year.

REPORTING BY KAZIM ALAM

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26th, 2014.

==========================================================================

That's why I always say that PMLN is mere propaganda without any substance .. that's it!.. They speend more money on advertisement than that of actual project!!! Propaganda League!!!

I don't have any skin in the game here with your political system. But I do know the World Economy, Current Emerging and Future Emerging markets, their economic and military geo-political setups really well. When I see someone misrepresenting the facts, I'd write the real story as people deserve to see the truth vs. someone's personal or political bias.
Will you post Mr. Alam's credentials as to if he is an experienced economist, etc, etc? Journalist and Economist or Strategist are all very different things.
Next, a government who got a country on the brink of total collapse and bankruptcy.....took it to over 4% growth in a couple of years.....that's actually a lot of work. The Rupee was in free fall and it stabilized well (more than in many years), the stock market's volume doubled in a year or so. A system on the verge of power outages lasting for weeks due to various reasons has stabilized and the internal businesses have started to produce again.
This journalist conveniently forgot to mention that when you want to earn, you need to find a job, to find a job you need a ride to get to work and then electricity at work to be productive. Your country lacks both the essentials. The electricity and a credible infrastructure for transportation and to support the services industry.....how do you grow economy to magical numbers when you don't even have infrastructure to support basic organic growth???
So what do you do then? You first start to create/enhance/expand your infrastructure. That itself creates jobs and stimulates the economy. Then, as the infrastructure is coming in the right place, you start strategic projects and then you control your expenses and focus on results......
And if you have been following the international media, there are projects worth about 150 billion dollars worth of investment in the hopper for Pakisan. The infrastructure is being expanded, many strategic projects have already been started. The power outages that used to be over 18 hours a day are now down to 6-8 hours a day (I am not sure if the 18 hour a day is right so please correct me). Next, the businesses are taking off, industrial parks are being built, the US is helping stabilize the educational, healthcare systems, etc and providing investment for the energy sector also. The Chinese are investing like crazy in infrastructure, power and energy, ports, manufacturing, technology and linking Pakistan to its Western part. So your country will indirectly be providing trading route for everything for about 200-300 million people living in West China. Imagine the money that would flow through your economy to support Western China's population (200 - 300 million people, almost like supporting another Pakistan's population for comparison's sake).

All these things will start to show progress in the next 12 to 24 months. Every time I've done a strategy for anyone, it's usually a 24-48 month process before results are seen from the bottom. What hasn't happened in your country's entire lifespan is happening now and doubling in some cases within the next 5-7 years timespan. Imagine if your previous leaders had done this amount of work for the people of Pakistan......you guys would be above South Korea economy wise.
Anyway, support people who are actually working, irrespective of your personal bias. The future of over 200 million is at stake and its a battle to take your country forward from where it's been in the past 15 years or so.

 

[MM_Haider]

I don't have any skin in the game here with your political system. But I do know the World Economy, Current Emerging and Future Emerging markets, their economic and military geo-political setups really well. When I see someone misrepresenting the facts, I'd write the real story as people deserve to see the truth vs. someone's personal or political bias.
Will you post Mr. Alam's credentials as to if he is an experienced economist, etc, etc? Journalist and Economist or Strategist are all very different things.
Next, a government who got a country on the brink of total collapse and bankruptcy.....took it to over 4% growth in a couple of years.....that's actually a lot of work. The Rupee was in free fall and it stabilized well (more than in many years), the stock market's volume doubled in a year or so. A system on the verge of power outages lasting for weeks due to various reasons has stabilized and the internal businesses have started to produce again.
This journalist conveniently forgot to mention that when you want to earn, you need to find a job, to find a job you need a ride to get to work and then electricity at work to be productive. Your country lacks both the essentials. The electricity and a credible infrastructure for transportation and to support the services industry.....how do you grow economy to magical numbers when you don't even have infrastructure to support basic organic growth every year growth???
So what do you do then? You first start to create/enhance/expand your infrastructure. That itself creates jobs and stimulates the economy. Then, as the infrastructure is coming in the right place, you start strategic projects and then you control your expenses and focus on results......
And if you have been following the international media, there are projects worth about 150 billion dollars worth of investment in the hopper for Pakisan. The infrastructure is being expanded, many strategic projects have already been started. The power outages that used to be over 18 hours a day are now down to 6-8 hours a day (I am not sure if the 18 hour a day is right so please correct me). Next, the businesses are taking off, industrial parks are being built, the US is helping stabilize the educational, healthcare systems, etc and providing investment for the energy sector also. The Chinese are investing like crazy in infrastructure, power and energy, ports, manufacturing, technology and linking Pakistan to its Western part. So your country will indirectly be providing trading route for everything for about 200-300 million people living in West China. Imagine the money that would flow through your economy to support Western China's population (200 - 300 million people, almost like supporting another Pakistan's population for comparison's sake).

All these things will start to show progress in the next 12 to 24 months. Every time I've done a strategy for anyone, it's usually a 24-48 month process before results are seen from the bottom. What hasn't happened in your country's entire lifespan is happening now and doubling in some cases within the next 5-7 years timespan. Imagine if your previous leaders had done this amount of work for the people of Pakistan......you guys would be above South Korea economy wise.
Anyway, support people who are actually working, irrespective of your personal bias. The future of over 200 million is at stake and its a battle to take your country forward from where it's been in the past 15 years or so.

where is the substance in your verbose to counter the facts provided by the Journalist! If you are trying to put your argument only on Appeal to Authority then you are doing it wrong mate!..

you say that rupee was on free fall and it has bee countered, this is factually wrong. In PPP's regime the dollar was at 98 rupees and which started to degrade as soon as PMLN govt came. It went up to 110 rupees and now stand at 99.. so in fact the rupee has been devalued.

insofar as foreign reserves are concerned they are basically due to loans from IMF in first years which are more than that of what PPP took in whole five years. Who is going to pay back and how, still remains a mystery.

All in all i am saying is that, please bring some counter facts in order to nullify those as presented by the Journalist. Your opinion doesn't matter.

 

[SBD-3]

I don't have any skin in the game here with your political system. But I do know the World Economy, Current Emerging and Future Emerging markets, their economic and military geo-political setups really well. When I see someone misrepresenting the facts, I'd write the real story as people deserve to see the truth vs. someone's personal or political bias.
Will you post Mr. Alam's credentials as to if he is an experienced economist, etc, etc? Journalist and Economist or Strategist are all very different things.
Next, a government who got a country on the brink of total collapse and bankruptcy.....took it to over 4% growth in a couple of years.....that's actually a lot of work. The Rupee was in free fall and it stabilized well (more than in many years), the stock market's volume doubled in a year or so. A system on the verge of power outages lasting for weeks due to various reasons has stabilized and the internal businesses have started to produce again.
This journalist conveniently forgot to mention that when you want to earn, you need to find a job, to find a job you need a ride to get to work and then electricity at work to be productive. Your country lacks both the essentials. The electricity and a credible infrastructure for transportation and to support the services industry.....how do you grow economy to magical numbers when you don't even have infrastructure to support basic organic growth every year growth???
So what do you do then? You first start to create/enhance/expand your infrastructure. That itself creates jobs and stimulates the economy. Then, as the infrastructure is coming in the right place, you start strategic projects and then you control your expenses and focus on results......
And if you have been following the international media, there are projects worth about 150 billion dollars worth of investment in the hopper for Pakisan. The infrastructure is being expanded, many strategic projects have already been started. The power outages that used to be over 18 hours a day are now down to 6-8 hours a day (I am not sure if the 18 hour a day is right so please correct me). Next, the businesses are taking off, industrial parks are being built, the US is helping stabilize the educational, healthcare systems, etc and providing investment for the energy sector also. The Chinese are investing like crazy in infrastructure, power and energy, ports, manufacturing, technology and linking Pakistan to its Western part. So your country will indirectly be providing trading route for everything for about 200-300 million people living in West China. Imagine the money that would flow through your economy to support Western China's population (200 - 300 million people, almost like supporting another Pakistan's population for comparison's sake).

All these things will start to show progress in the next 12 to 24 months. Every time I've done a strategy for anyone, it's usually a 24-48 month process before results are seen from the bottom. What hasn't happened in your country's entire lifespan is happening now and doubling in some cases within the next 5-7 years timespan. Imagine if your previous leaders had done this amount of work for the people of Pakistan......you guys would be above South Korea economy wise.
Anyway, support people who are actually working, irrespective of your personal bias. The future of over 200 million is at stake and its a battle to take your country forward from where it's been in the past 15 years or so.

PTI walas are talking about 25% YoY as reasonable growth target....

insofar as foreign reserves are concerned they are basically due to loans from IMF in first years which are more than that of what PPP took in whole five years. Who is going to pay back and how, still remains a mystery.

Pakistan has historically lacked the reserve accumulation. Even in PPP regime the IMF's SBA was major boost to reserves. Even before that in Mushi Regime, reserves boost was by a mix of IMF,Commercial Bank borrowing and Bonds floating. Reserve accumulation requires external account reengineering which is hard to implement with structural issues outstanding such a power shortages, high import in-elasticity, price effect etc.

 

[ziaulislam]

I don't have any skin in the game here with your political system. But I do know the World Economy, Current Emerging and Future Emerging markets, their economic and military geo-political setups really well. When I see someone misrepresenting the facts, I'd write the real story as people deserve to see the truth vs. someone's personal or political bias.
Will you post Mr. Alam's credentials as to if he is an experienced economist, etc, etc? Journalist and Economist or Strategist are all very different things.
Next, a government who got a country on the brink of total collapse and bankruptcy.....took it to over 4% growth in a couple of years.....that's actually a lot of work. The Rupee was in free fall and it stabilized well (more than in many years), the stock market's volume doubled in a year or so. A system on the verge of power outages lasting for weeks due to various reasons has stabilized and the internal businesses have started to produce again.
This journalist conveniently forgot to mention that when you want to earn, you need to find a job, to find a job you need a ride to get to work and then electricity at work to be productive. Your country lacks both the essentials. The electricity and a credible infrastructure for transportation and to support the services industry.....how do you grow economy to magical numbers when you don't even have infrastructure to support basic organic growth every year growth???
So what do you do then? You first start to create/enhance/expand your infrastructure. That itself creates jobs and stimulates the economy. Then, as the infrastructure is coming in the right place, you start strategic projects and then you control your expenses and focus on results......
And if you have been following the international media, there are projects worth about 150 billion dollars worth of investment in the hopper for Pakisan. The infrastructure is being expanded, many strategic projects have already been started. The power outages that used to be over 18 hours a day are now down to 6-8 hours a day (I am not sure if the 18 hour a day is right so please correct me). Next, the businesses are taking off, industrial parks are being built, the US is helping stabilize the educational, healthcare systems, etc and providing investment for the energy sector also. The Chinese are investing like crazy in infrastructure, power and energy, ports, manufacturing, technology and linking Pakistan to its Western part. So your country will indirectly be providing trading route for everything for about 200-300 million people living in West China. Imagine the money that would flow through your economy to support Western China's population (200 - 300 million people, almost like supporting another Pakistan's population for comparison's sake).

All these things will start to show progress in the next 12 to 24 months. Every time I've done a strategy for anyone, it's usually a 24-48 month process before results are seen from the bottom. What hasn't happened in your country's entire lifespan is happening now and doubling in some cases within the next 5-7 years timespan. Imagine if your previous leaders had done this amount of work for the people of Pakistan......you guys would be above South Korea economy wise.
Anyway, support people who are actually working, irrespective of your personal bias. The future of over 200 million is at stake and its a battle to take your country forward from where it's been in the past 15 years or so.

the only real, undisputed failure of the current govt is low taxation. rest govt performed pretty well. also there were no real reforms in electric sector causing increase in line losses and thus increase in subsidies.
apart from these two govt did well because of improve confidence, however the direct foreign investment did decreased in real values.
had the govt done electric reforms and good taxation it would have easily achieved 5+ growth. the lower growth was due to low developmental spending due to lower than expected taxation.

i think govt needs to train its FBR, bring new blood , increase prison sentences for tax evaders and bring smart meters for electricity. however this didnt happened due to political lack of will.
over all govt performance was far better than previous govt. however simply killing the poor with high direct taxation (17% sales tax and high withholding tax) cant be termed as good performance

 

[Hyde]

The government failed to achieve its target for the mother of all economic indicators – gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate – for 2013-14. With GDP growth rate expected to be 4.14% for the outgoing year, the government is going to miss its original target of 4.4%.

I agree with @orangzaib & @ziaulislam post and just want to highlight this particular part of the first post as this is technically the most important indicators out of all.

The author has written this article out of his love for PML-N. Even though I am not a N-League voter but they have performed remarkably well for improving the economy. If you just go back about 1 year ago, IMF was predicting the GDP growth to stay below 3% and close to 2.8% if my memory is correct. Then they revised the target to further downwards in contrast to the Government's tall claim of 4.40%. Then after seeing some growth rate taken up, They revised the target upwards close to 3.20% and the government was adamant keeping it at 4.40%. Then they further revised the target upwards to 3.8% and ultimately the Government settled to 4.14%. Now that's also a very low target but when you compare the notion given by IMF and the achievement, I think this is a fair performance for this year. The overall indicators of IMF has further improved for next year due to good performance "as per they" for the existing year.

The worst part of the Government as rightly mentioned by @ziaulislam is the lack of Tax reforms and no efforts for controlling loadshedding in short term basis. Their prime focus seems to be on medium-to-long term solution.

 

[farhan_9909]

I don't know anything but i want more than 5% Growth rate next year and a healthy growth rate of more than 8% in Export

These two indicators are the most important of all

 

[MM_Haider]

PTI walas are talking about 25% YoY as reasonable growth target....


Pakistan has historically lacked the reserve accumulation. Even in PPP regime the IMF's SBA was major boost to reserves. Even before that in Mushi Regime, reserves boost was by a mix of IMF,Commercial Bank borrowing and Bonds floating. Reserve accumulation requires external account reengineering which is hard to implement with structural issues outstanding such a power shortages, high import in-elasticity, price effect etc.

My question was different if you cared reading!

 

[SBD-3]

My question was different if you cared reading!

Its not about PPP not borrowing from IMF. But IMF,WB, ADB even the Chinese all withdrew their financial assistance.

 

[MM_Haider]

Its not about PPP not borrowing from IMF. But IMF,WB, ADB even the Chinese all withdrew their financial assistance.

I reckon we have definition problem. All I am saying is that the economy based on aid and loan is not stable and it is just bubble. If it was so then Pakistani economy would have grown exponentially in Zia's regime and remain growing even afterwards when dollars were raining on us, but you think otherwise! So it's an impasse on our discussion!.

 

[SBD-3]

I reckon we have definition problem. All I am saying is that the economy based on aid and loan is not stable and it is just bubble. If it was so then Pakistani economy would have grown exponentially in Zia's regime and remain growing even afterwards when dollars were raining on us, but you think otherwise! So it's an impasse on our discussion!.

It is because economy's internal funding generation capacity has been hampered by low Tax/GDP and Lower economic growth. Banks' ability to fuel growth has been severely hampered in previous decade. Advances to Deposit ratio has fallen from 70% to just 54%. With the internal sources of funding shrinking, its only inevitable that economy will have to rely on the external capital.
Economic growth's sustainability dependes upon all three dimensions i.e. Lagged growth, Current growth and leading indicators of growth. Sustainable economic growth is a result of a strategy which is 1)Comprehensive 2)Consistent across time. Musharraf's regime saw the bubble of consumer financing and real estate and failed to encounter that in time. As a result, the growth rate couldn't sustain as the borrowers defaulted, so did the producers who borrowed in hope of expanding businesses. Plus we have a bleeding of around 1-2% YoY in the shape of electricity and gas loadhshedding. Debt is no problem unless you can outgrow it (keeping a check on Debt/GDP). Pakistan's economic booms were predominantly driven by external factors rather than consistent economic policy and reforms. Thats why I repeatedly suggested that all the parties should develop a consensus on major economic goals and spare this from political gimmicks.

 

[MM_Haider]

It is because economy's internal funding generation capacity has been hampered by low Tax/GDP and Lower economic growth. Banks' ability to fuel growth has been severely hampered in previous decade. Advances to Deposit ratio has fallen from 70% to just 54%. With the internal sources of funding shrinking, its only inevitable that economy will have to rely on the external capital.

so improve your institutions, tax reform, land reforms etc.. don't create another bubble and burden our generation to come with loans! because history tells that economy never revives with loans.. which PMLN is taking at bulk.. PPP took loans in their tenure as much as Pakistan took in whole 6 decades and then PMLN broke all the records and took more loans in their first year surpassing the PPP ones during 2008 - 2013! so jumping Yayyyy on the foreign reserves doesn't make any sense! rather it is alarming.

 

[SBD-3]

so improve your institutions, tax reform, land reforms etc.. don't create another bubble and burden our generation to come with loans! because history tells that economy never revives with loans.. which PMLN is taking at bulk.. PPP took loans in their tenure as much as Pakistan took in whole 6 decades and then PMLN broke all the records and took more loans in their first year surpassing the PPP ones during 2008 - 2013! so jumping Yayyyy on the foreign reserves doesn't make any sense! rather it is alarming.

Like I said the economic growth and generation of economic capacity is a three way indicator. There is a negative inertia from lagged sub-normal growths, structural issues in implementing tax reforms (which would also involve capacity building of FBR). Its not gonna happen overnight. But around 5-8 years (given incoming government formulate consistent policies). PPP left a very high budget deficit which is evident that around 1.2 trillion PKR were just for debt service. Given the deficit of 1.6 Trillion PKR. It automatically ment that 1.6 Trillion of new debt would be added in system. An easy solution would be cutting back the PSDP (500 Billion) but that would create a drag on the economic framework. So things are not as simple as they seem in reality. You just can't jump out of a debt spiral like a superman.

 

[ziaulislam]

so improve your institutions, tax reform, land reforms etc.. don't create another bubble and burden our generation to come with loans! because history tells that economy never revives with loans.. which PMLN is taking at bulk.. PPP took loans in their tenure as much as Pakistan took in whole 6 decades and then PMLN broke all the records and took more loans in their first year surpassing the PPP ones during 2008 - 2013! so jumping Yayyyy on the foreign reserves doesn't make any sense! rather it is alarming.

our debt condition is not bad(around 60% GDP), even current account deficit is not that bad, real problem is trust,lack of foreign investment, electricity and tax reforms in short term basis. while more liberalization and privatization in medium term.
govt has to move quickly on electricity reforms as its subsidy is near 1.5% of gdp probably the single biggest govt expenditure after defense!!(around 330 billion rupees this year, average of 400+ billion rupees last 2 years). remember the defaulters are usually the govt,upper and middle class both of whom can pay there bills but dont bother plus lack of smart meters and grids which are very cheap. govt showed no promising gains in this field. it also has to move quickly on privitization of steel mills, national bank and other loss making entites

lack of taxation reforms is extremely is worrisome, on basis of Tax to GDP ration govt made little to no gain in(less than 1% gain) taxation, in fact it decreased (in form of direct taxations)..!!!

so, govt performed well from the previous govt but as whole its performance is below expectations. as i said before poor tax collection resulted in axing a lot of development projects resulting in lower GDP growh

 

[MM_Haider]

Like I said the economic growth and generation of economic capacity is a three way indicator. There is a negative inertia from lagged sub-normal growths, structural issues in implementing tax reforms (which would also involve capacity building of FBR). Its not gonna happen overnight. But around 5-8 years (given incoming government formulate consistent policies). PPP left a very high budget deficit which is evident that around 1.2 trillion PKR were just for debt service. Given the deficit of 1.6 Trillion PKR. It automatically ment that 1.6 Trillion of new debt would be added in system. An easy solution would be cutting back the PSDP (500 Billion) but that would create a drag on the economic framework. So things are not as simple as they seem in reality. You just can't jump out of a debt spiral like a superman.

You can jump if you have will otherwise there are plenty of excuses. It is is just a habit that governments blame the previous ones .. nothing else. We need to see the performance of this current year exclusively and current scenario is:

1. Debts increase and Pakistan is stuck in a vicious cycle of IMF. This is brain child of Isaac Daar and not Hina Rabbani Khar or Hafeez Shekh so please stop blaming previous governments.
2. Electricity in Pakistan is the expensive most in the South Asia region.
3. No substantial increase in growth rate, GDP. Government couldn't even achieve 3.9% in agriculture and public sector. Agriculture where you don't need any special extra effort like industry. Blame PPP government for that?
4. PMLN Government is missing the twice revised target of Tax collection. Is it also due to back lag from previous regimes?
5. In contrast with the target of 15.1% of the GDP, the share of investments in 2013-14 remained 14%. The savings-to-GDP ratio remained 13% in 2013-14 as opposed to the original target of 14%. Now this is the target PMLN set and claimed that they would achieve that in order to make headline but ground reality is opposite. who is culprit here?
6. Current account deficit in 2013-14 is up by 37% Year-on-Year basis. Isn't it incompetency of PMLN?
7. The average CPI inflation of 8.7% and PMLN claims that dollar value came down. It is such a joke which is factually wrong and hence the inflation.
8. The FDI decreased by 13% in this year. So is it also due to bad economic policies of zardari?

So what are you defending basically?

Come on man and try to defend something which is substantial. PMLN is merely hollow slogans and propaganda! They just make headlines that they will do this and that but in fact the result is zero. They are boondoggling the nation that they have revived the economic condition of Pakistan by spending public money on ads. I am here and by Allah's grace you will also be here after five years. Will see if there is any substantial change in the Pakistani economy due to PMLN's experienced people's experience.

our debt condition is not bad(around 60% GDP), even current account deficit is not that bad, real problem is trust,lack of foreign investment, electricity and tax reforms in short term basis. while more liberalization and privatization in medium term.
govt has to move quickly on electricity reforms as its subsidy is near 1.5% of gdp probably the single biggest govt expenditure after defense!!(around 330 billion rupees this year, average of 400+ billion rupees last 2 years). remember the defaulters are usually the govt,upper and middle class both of whom can pay there bills but dont bother plus lack of smart meters and grids which are very cheap. govt showed no promising gains in this field. it also has to move quickly on privitization of steel mills, national bank and other loss making entites

lack of taxation reforms is extremely is worrisome, on basis of Tax to GDP ration govt made little to no gain in(less than 1% gain) taxation, in fact it decreased (in form of direct taxations)..!!!

so, govt performed well from the previous govt but as whole its performance is below expectations. as i said before poor tax collection resulted in axing a lot of development projects resulting in lower GDP growh

the cost of electricity is highest in the region in pakistan. tell me one single step Govt has taken to decrease the line losses and improve the current infrastructure from where most of the electricity is lost! yeah we saw a lot of headlines though.