Pakistan climbs ladder of economic freedom: report
ISLAMABAD, Sept 7: Pakistan still remains behind India in South Asia in terms of economic freedom, according to a report released on Friday on economic freedom of the world for the year 2007.
Though Pakistan performed better than India as Islamabad score leapt to six points, out of 10 this year as against 5.7 points last year whereas Indias score slightly improved to 6.6 points out of 10 as against 6.5.
The areas that improved Pakistans overall performance are: size of government; legal structure and security of property rights; and, freedom to trade internationally. However, Pakistan lost a lot in areas of access to sound money and regulation of credit, labour, and business.
The report, a copy of which was made available to Dawn, said Pakistan climbs the ladder of economic freedom scoring six points ranking 101 out of 141 countries; leaps big in legal structure and security of property rights area by improving from 2.5 to 4.4; loses big in access in sound money by sliding down from 6.4 to 6.0.
Hong Kong and Singapore rated best for economic freedom, Zimbabwe and Myanmar rank worst, according to the report released by Pakistans first free market think-tank, Alternate Solutions Institute.
The annual report uses 42 different measures to create an index ranking countries around the world based on policies that encourage economic freedom.
The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of private property.
Research shows that individuals living in countries with high levels of economic freedom enjoy higher levels of prosperity, greater individual freedoms, and longer life spans.
These measures are part of a fundamental base needed to build a free and prosperous nation.
A quick glance at the names of countries scoring lowest on the index shows that without protection of property rights and judicial independence, there was little individual freedom and little in the way of prosperity.
Pakistan scores in key components of economic freedom (from 1 to 10 where a higher value indicates a higher level of economic freedom): size of government changed to 7.3 scores from 7.2 in the last years report; legal structures and security of property rights changed to 4.4 from 2.5; access to sound money changed to 6.0 from 6.4; freedom to trade internationally changed to 5.8 from 5.7; regulation of credit, labour and business changed to 6.3 from 6.5.
In this years main index, Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom, 8.9 out of 10.
Pakistan climbs ladder of economic freedom: report -DAWN - Business; September 08, 2007
