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Pakistan Declared Cheapest Country To Live In: Farrukh Habib

I find Pakistan more expensive than Canada when buying food and clothing. Example when I went there last time (5 years ago) I went to local store to buy smallest bread, smallest butter (the one we get here for free in fast food), 6 eggs and a apple jam cost me 1200 rupee. Its equal to 8 dollars Canadian in those times. For that money I could have bought a full size bread, 12 eggs, 1 pound butter and maybe one cheapest jam.

It makes sense if you bought imported stuff from somewhere like Essa Jees. Locally made stuff is much much cheaper. From a good grocery store or bakery like Tehzeeb Large bread is around 100, dozen eggs are 160, Nurpur butter 200grams is around 220, standard size apple jam that should be enough for one person for a week is 90.

You can verify these prices here



You see people gets swayed away from data from their own and start to argue. When one index on its own never tell the same story. I understand you from Bangladesh or Bangladesh origin, rightly think that on Purchasing power or Per Capita income BD is higher than Pakistan. Which would be right.
But that does not tell the whole story. Especially Per Capita income is one of the most misguided tool to look at the affordibility in different countries. If distribution of income is skewed it is not a fair picture of economic condition of a country.

You see for many years I have worked for a Nigerian oil company. I used to go to Nigeria every 2 months.
The poverty there is abject. But Nigerians thinks very highly of themselves because their overall GDP is the highest in Africa now. So they feel proud of the richest in Africa.

They used to think Pakistan is poor compare to them. When I said that Pakistan is many times better than Nigeria they didn't get it. Then I showed them infrastructure , housing etc in Pakistan, they understand a little, but were not fully convinced.

But it is a fact, Nigeria despite having lots of oil, is in dire situation, due to corruption and other factors.
If you have $50 bn of oil revenue. It would show good on paper, that what it is. But as a reality most of that income goes to few big powerful oil companies and some corrupt leadership of Nigeria. The poor are getting no benefit from it. Roads and other infrastructure is dire.

What I used to say to them is backed by data. BD example is similar to Nigeria , but not that alarming like Nigeria.

Look at Quality of life index from the same website.

China 64 (103.16), India 65 (103), Pakistan 66 (102.15). Thus they have similar quality of life. That's where I always argue that Indians are very mistaken if they think Pakistan is poor compared to them, based on just on figure of Per Capita Income. Which once again is vulnerable to many factors.

While BD is far low on quality of life index compared to the above three countries.
BD 81 (64.54), Sri Lanka 80 (75.52) while Nigeria is bottom of the list with quality of life 83 (54.71).
It is important to note that Sri Lanka has almost double per capita income compared to India or Pakistan, but on quality of life it is almost bottom of the list, so is BD despite higher per capita income.

Reading the data in correct way is the key.
By the way I am a post graduate in Economics.

Thank you for adding value to this thread and this forum. Refreshing to see intelligent posts instead of usual anti-Gov rants.

I have had the same experience in a few African countries. On paper simply looking at these stats it would seem that Pakistan lags in almost every metric like HDI, women in workforce, healthcare, education etc. On ground situation is VASTLY different. Perfectly explained.
 
You may have been ripped by a store. The size shown above is a common product in almost every city (of course different brands) and the stuff you wrote above shall cost around +/-700 Approx.

lets assume what you say is true. my 2nd argument is that the stuff I got ripped off for in Pakistan only costs me half hour of minimum wage in Canada yet it looks like a standard wage of one day for a lower middle income.
 
I think this ranking is more of cheaper to survive and low price accommodation.
Also let's do social experiment assign a budget fo week and buy items here for comparison.
 
You were sleeping for last 70 years!!
You got up now , when there is betterment in service delivery and there are efforts to provide relief to poor people through "Sehat Cards" and also "Income Support" program. When this was ever done!!
Plus you got a PM who genuinely listen to people's complaints live on television and try to resolve them.
When this had happened in Pakistan!!

In the past your favourite Corrupt thugs Sharifs and Zardaris have made places like "JAti ummrah" and "Bilawal Houses" stashed billions of dollars in safe heavens. Are you talking about those type of services making you happy!

Bla bla bla bla


both dynasties are making more money than they used to before the saint of Mianwali came about.
I think this ranking is more of cheaper to survive and low price accommodation.
Also let's do social experiment assign a budget fo week and buy items here for comparison.

PTi general secretary should live on 20k a month and then report back
 
lets assume what you say is true. my 2nd argument is that the stuff I got ripped off for in Pakistan only costs me half hour of minimum wage in Canada yet it looks like a standard wage of one day for a lower middle income.
Sure that is possible. That represents buying power against a specific item. If we move on to compare tax values, rental and utility prices, fuel charges only then the real picture is shown to some extent. Canada might be low on food or some of them but over all status need to be seen. OP has made such an attempt with accuracy debatable but cannot be rejected as wrong straight away.
 

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