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Pakistan's Per Capita income Rises to $3135 Amid Slow Growth

After precipitous drop in FDI, FII inflow into India is also petering out.

Here are some excerpts from an Indian Financial Express story headlined "More FII money to Pak than to India":

Mumbai: Whether Dalal Street likes it or not, India is now the worst-performing market in the world as dark clouds have started cluttering the economic, investment and political horizons. Worried foreign institutional investors (FIIs), who came to India in droves last year, have been pulling out funds with such alacrity this year that even a much smaller — and significantly more volatile and unstable — market like Pakistan has got more foreign inflows in the last six months.
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As per figures of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, FIIs have already pulled out $497 million (including GDRs, primary market, stock markets etc) from India from January to June 22 this year. This has come as a big blow to the market which witnessed an inflow of $29.36 billion in the whole of calendar 2010. FIIs took out Rs 14,387 crore (around $3.2 billion) from the secondary market in 2011, bringing the Sensex down from 21,108 on November 5, 2010 to 17,727.49 on June 23, 2011.

Across the border, Pakistan received a portfolio investment of around $230 million in the last six months. That, too, when the Karachi Stock Exchange, its largest, has a market cap of only $35 billion whereas the Bombay Stock Exchange has a market cap of $1,500 billion.
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The latest worry of FIIs is the possibility of tightening in rules governing the tax treaty with Mauritius. If both the governments tighten the regulations governing the treaty, the fund flow through this route will come down drastically. “Funds using this route will go elsewhere. India has got minuscule funds FIIs this year,” said a fund manager with a foreign investment firm.

A large chunk of FII investment in the stock market comes through Mauritius as companies registered there are exempted from tax in India under the treaty. The government had recently indicated about reviewing this tax treaty to tighten registration norms and making the fund flows more transparent.

More FII money to Pak than to India

Good thing FDA has picked up again.

By the way, inflation is a big problem for India. Has been for last 10 years. While GDP is growing very fast, PCI is growing at snail pace. Ofcourse it doesn't help that Oil is trading around $100..
 
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How about Inflation problems in Pakistan, the price is increasing rapidly. GoP need to control it. :hitwall:
 
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^^^^^^

In Asia only China has effectively controlled inflation. Pakistan and India have high inflation rates

Pakistan 15.7%, India 9.6%, Bangladesh 8.1% Sri Lanka 6.9%, China 4.5%
 
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Inflation in India is very high. I am not sure abt Pakistan.
Last Jan I visited india, surprised with prices. But people are buying. People have made lot of money and income raised a lot.
Huge money flow. It is problem for old people and who depend on fixed income.
 
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^^^^^^

In Asia only China has effectively controlled inflation. Pakistan and India have high inflation rates

Pakistan 15.7%, India 9.6%, Bangladesh 8.1% Sri Lanka 6.9%, China 4.5%

Inflation in India is very high. I am not sure abt Pakistan.
Last Jan I visited india, surprised with prices. But people are buying. People have made lot of money and income raised a lot.
Huge money flow. It is problem for old people and who depend on fixed income.

Exactly, that's main worry for some fixed-income Pakistanis who can't afford to buy expensive products. It is gap btw rich and poor. :hitwall:
 
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For the Information of Mr. Riaz Haq :

If we want to compete, we need to invest more in higher education.

By Javaid R. Laghari

It’s hit an all-time low. Pakistan’s commitment to the higher education sector has been scaled back by 10 percent at the same time that India has raised its higher-education budget by 25 percent. This reduction is in addition to the 40 percent cut imposed last year. This shortsightedness imperils economic growth by stunting prospects of a viable middle class.

India has a population six times the size of Pakistan’s. Its GDP, at $1.8 trillion, is 10 times larger than ours. Its growth rate is 8.5 percent, ours is 2.4 percent. Its value-added exports, at $250 billion, are more than ours by a factor of 15; and its FDI, at $26 billion per year, dwarfs ours by a factor of 22. India is set to surpass Japan to become the world’s third largest economy by 2014. This has all been made possible, in no small measure, because of India’s human capital. Pakistan needs to take a leaf out of their book to realize the possible.

The World Bank identifies several key factors to achieve and sustain economic growth: education, a skilled workforce, information and communication technologies, and innovation. These are the veritable pillars of a knowledge economy. Likewise, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 lists higher education and training, technology readiness, and innovation as essential for competitiveness.

Catching up to the rest of the world must start now. And there is much ground to cover. For Pakistanis between the ages of 17 and 23, access to higher education is at 5.1 percent—one of the lowest in the world. (India is at 12.2 percent and aiming for 30 percent by 2020.) Pakistan has 132 universities for a population of 180 million and a student population of about 1.1 million. India has 504 universities with an enrollment of over 15 million (its enrolment target is 40 million by 2020). Pakistan has approved funding for two new universities. Over the next five years, India will have established 29 universities and 40 other institutes. Pakistan can today produce about 700 Ph.D.s every year (up from a dismal 200 in 2002) while India can produce 8,900 and China some 50,000.

It’s the middle class that makes the difference. India’s represents 32 percent of the total population and is growing at 1 percent annually. By investing heavily in education and entrepreneurship, they hope half the population will qualify as middle class by 2040. Pakistan’s middle class is about 12 percent of the population, and struggling as more and more people slip below the poverty line each year.

India’s political leadership is putting out all the right signals. India has a Knowledge Commission headed by a world-renowned expert serving as an adviser to the prime minister; a Ministry of Human Resource Development, and a strong and centralized University Grants Commission. New Delhi alone is spending 3.5 percent of GDP on education, with 1.03 percent, or $11.5 billion, on higher education alone. This federal allocation is in addition to the states financially supporting university budgets, in some cases covering up to 80 percent of their costs. Pakistan is spending only about 1.3 percent on education and 0.22 percent on higher education.

Sixty-four years ago, Pakistan and India started out evenly enough in terms of education and skilled-workforce levels. India has overshot us and is now competing with the big boys, swiftly and dedicatedly catching up with the developed world in higher education, science, technology, innovation, and research. Pakistan cannot afford to be left behind. We cannot allow security threats, the financial and ideological allure of Islamist radicalism, and bad governance to defeat us. Shoring up higher education and innovation are the solutions that will yield tangible, long-lasting benefits. Yet we are only capable it seems of dialing down attention to areas that can guarantee our success. Pakistan must push to improve and expand higher education. With so much at stake and so much we can do, this is the wise way forward.

Laghari is chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission

The Real War With India
 
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Nominal per capita incomes in both India and Pakistan stand at just over $1200 a year, according to figures released in May and June of 2011 by the two governments. This translates to about $3100 per capita in terms of PPP (purchasing power parity).

Nominal per capita income of Indians grew by 17.9 per cent to Rs 54,835, or $1218, in 2010-11 from Rs 46,492 in the year-ago period, according to the revised data released by the government in May, 2011 as reported by Indian media.

In June 2011, Economic Survey of Pakistan reported that the nominal per capita income of Pakistanis rose 16.9 percent to $1,254 in 2010-11, up from $1,073 in 2009-2010.



Neither of these figures are adjusted for inflation which has been running in high single digits in India (about 9%) and double digits in Pakistan (about 14%).

Looking at the increase in nominal per capita income alone can be quite misleading in judging the health of any economy. Other indicators, such as real GDP growth and investments, show that the state of Pakistan's economy is very poor. The nation's GDP grew only 2.4% in real terms in 2010-2011. Domestic investment dropped to a 40-year low of 13.4% of GDP, and foreign direct investment (FDI) declined by 29 percent to $1.232 billion during July-April 2010-11 from $1.725 million in the same period a year earlier.

In addition to improved security environment, Pakistan has an urgent need for serious economic reform, greater social justice and better governance. Unless the PPP government acts to improve this situation, no amount of foreign aid, external loans and other help will suffice. The first step in the process is for the ruling elite to lead by example by paying their fair share of taxes and adopting less extravagant personal lifestyles to get Pakistan's fiscal house in order.

Haq's Musings: India and Pakistan Per Capita GDPs at $3,100 in 2010-11
 
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For the Information of Mr. Riaz Haq :

If we want to compete, we need to invest more in higher education.

By Javaid R. Laghari

It’s hit an all-time low. Pakistan’s commitment to the higher education sector has been scaled back by 10 percent at the same time that India has raised its higher-education budget by 25 percent. This reduction is in addition to the 40 percent cut imposed last year. This shortsightedness imperils economic growth by stunting prospects of a viable middle class.

India has a population six times the size of Pakistan’s. Its GDP, at $1.8 trillion, is 10 times larger than ours. Its growth rate is 8.5 percent, ours is 2.4 percent. Its value-added exports, at $250 billion, are more than ours by a factor of 15; and its FDI, at $26 billion per year, dwarfs ours by a factor of 22. India is set to surpass Japan to become the world’s third largest economy by 2014. This has all been made possible, in no small measure, because of India’s human capital. Pakistan needs to take a leaf out of their book to realize the possible.

The World Bank identifies several key factors to achieve and sustain economic growth: education, a skilled workforce, information and communication technologies, and innovation. These are the veritable pillars of a knowledge economy. Likewise, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 lists higher education and training, technology readiness, and innovation as essential for competitiveness.

Catching up to the rest of the world must start now. And there is much ground to cover. For Pakistanis between the ages of 17 and 23, access to higher education is at 5.1 percent—one of the lowest in the world. (India is at 12.2 percent and aiming for 30 percent by 2020.) Pakistan has 132 universities for a population of 180 million and a student population of about 1.1 million. India has 504 universities with an enrollment of over 15 million (its enrolment target is 40 million by 2020). Pakistan has approved funding for two new universities. Over the next five years, India will have established 29 universities and 40 other institutes. Pakistan can today produce about 700 Ph.D.s every year (up from a dismal 200 in 2002) while India can produce 8,900 and China some 50,000.

It’s the middle class that makes the difference. India’s represents 32 percent of the total population and is growing at 1 percent annually. By investing heavily in education and entrepreneurship, they hope half the population will qualify as middle class by 2040. Pakistan’s middle class is about 12 percent of the population, and struggling as more and more people slip below the poverty line each year.

India’s political leadership is putting out all the right signals. India has a Knowledge Commission headed by a world-renowned expert serving as an adviser to the prime minister; a Ministry of Human Resource Development, and a strong and centralized University Grants Commission. New Delhi alone is spending 3.5 percent of GDP on education, with 1.03 percent, or $11.5 billion, on higher education alone. This federal allocation is in addition to the states financially supporting university budgets, in some cases covering up to 80 percent of their costs. Pakistan is spending only about 1.3 percent on education and 0.22 percent on higher education.

Sixty-four years ago, Pakistan and India started out evenly enough in terms of education and skilled-workforce levels. India has overshot us and is now competing with the big boys, swiftly and dedicatedly catching up with the developed world in higher education, science, technology, innovation, and research. Pakistan cannot afford to be left behind. We cannot allow security threats, the financial and ideological allure of Islamist radicalism, and bad governance to defeat us. Shoring up higher education and innovation are the solutions that will yield tangible, long-lasting benefits. Yet we are only capable it seems of dialing down attention to areas that can guarantee our success. Pakistan must push to improve and expand higher education. With so much at stake and so much we can do, this is the wise way forward.

Laghari is chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission

The Real War With India

Here's what I wrote to Newsweek and Dr. Laghari in response to this article:

Dr. Laghari's opinion piece in your July 29, 2011 issue raises some serious questions with regard to the current Pakistani government's commitment to education in general and higher education in particular.

I am personally a strong believer in the value of higher education and the need for significant investments in it, especially in this day and age when intellectual capital and wealth of nations are far more important than any other kind of resources.

Those who cite the 1986 World Bank study to argue that the social rates of return for higher education are 13 percent lower than return on basic education must remember the following: Hundreds of millions of lives in Asia were saved as a result of the success of the Green Revolution that was enabled by a combination of US aid, and the capacity of the recipient nations to absorb it by virtue of the availability of local college graduates in agriculture and engineering.

While I fundamentally agree with the HEC Chairman on his larger point of the necessity of strong higher education, I do think his unsubstantiated claims hurt his credibility, particularly his claim that "sixty-four years ago, Pakistan and India started out evenly enough in terms of education and skilled-workforce levels" and his assertion that India's middle class being much larger than Pakistan's as percentage of population. Both of these assertions are not supported by data from any credible sources.

The fact is that the Muslim populations in areas that constituted Pakistan were significantly disadvantaged relative to the rest of India in terms of education and economy in 1947, as established by significant data published a number of credible researchers like Dr. Kaiser Bengali and Dr. Kirpal Singh.

As to size of the middle class in South Asia today, Pakistan has continued to offer much greater upward economic and social mobility to its citizens than neighboring India. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report on Asia's rising middle class released recently.

The ADB report on Asia's rising middle class released in 2010 confirms that Pakistan's middle class has grown to 40% of the population, significantly larger than the Indian middle class of about 25% of its population, and it has been growing faster than India's middle class. The other significant news reported by Wall Street Journal says the vast majority of what is defined as India's middle class is perched just above $2 a day, making it vulnerable to various shocks. This is also true of Pakistan.
 
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For a country that now has the reputation of neglecting the development of its vast human resource, it is possible to reach a somewhat different conclusion about the preparedness of the workforce. When the data for the schooling of the young is examined in some detail, and in the context of what is occurring in other countries of South Asia, Pakistan seems well positioned to develop a modern economy. The data used here are from the work done by the economists Robert Baro and Jhong-Wha Lee at Harvard University. Looking at this data, it appears that compared to other large countries of South Asia, Pakistan is doing better in an area that could be tremendously important for its economic and social future.

In 2010, India had 67 per cent of the 15-plus age group in school while Pakistan had 62 per cent. However, it is at the other end of the educational spectrum — what educationists call the tertiary stage — that Pakistan seems to be doing considerably better than other South Asian countries.

In 1950, for India and Pakistan, the proportion of people attending tertiary institutions was 0.6 per cent. Since this has increased to 5.8 per cent for India, a ten-fold increase, and to 5.5 per cent for Pakistan, a nine-fold growth. For Bangladesh, the increase was spectacular, a twenty-fold growth. However, it is the impressive increase for Pakistan that provides the element of surprise.

Pakistan does well in one critical area — the drop-out rate in tertiary education. Those who complete tertiary education in Pakistan account for a larger proportion of persons who enter school at this level. The proportion is much higher for girls, another surprising finding for Pakistan.

With a considerably lower drop-out rate at the tertiary level, it is not surprising that the number of years students spend in school in Pakistan (5.6 years) is higher than that in India (5.1 years) but a bit lower than that for Bangladesh ( 5.8 years). For tertiary education alone, Pakistan’s youth spend more time being educated than those in Bangladesh and India.

It is in the last two decades that the real brake occurred in Pakistan. The proportion of the 15-plus age group receiving tertiary education in Pakistan increased from only 2.4 per cent in 1990 to 5.5 per cent in 2010. The proportion of students completing tertiary education in Pakistan is 41 per cent higher than that for India. Better performance, when measured in terms of the proportion of the population receiving tertiary education, matters a great deal for the economic future. As Baro and Lee point out, the estimated rate of return is very high for tertiary education, close to 18 per cent. This is only 10 per cent for secondary education and almost zero for primary education. The state, by only concentrating on primary education, is not buying a better future for the citizenry. It must make it possible to develop tertiary education as well.

The answer to the question — why has Pakistan done so much better than other large South Asian countries? — leads us into the realm of speculation. An argument can be made that the nationalisation of privately-managed education in the 1970s and the resulting expansion in the role of public education resulted in a serious deterioration of educational standards. This troubled the well-to-do segments of the population who had the means to pay for good education if it could be provided. This brought the private sector into education and its role expanded rapidly.

The demographic changes occurring in the West and the pressure on the state to pull back from such activities as education, research and innovation means that enormous opportunities are being created for the populous countries of South Asia. In light of the little noticed progress it has made in tertiary education, Pakistan seems well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities becoming available in the new economy.

Preparing the population for a modern economy – The Express Tribune
 
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Rising per capita income and a growing, young population spending more time online and at Western movies are helping build a mass market in Pakistan, according to Businessweek:

One way to take a city’s economic pulse is to check out where locals shop. In Karachi, Pakistan, shoppers are flocking to Port Grand, which opened in May. Built as a promenade by the historic harbor for almost $23 million, the center caters to Pakistanis eager to indulge themselves. This city of 20 million has seen more than 1,500 deaths from political and sectarian violence from January to August. At Port Grand the only hint of the turmoil is the presence of security details and surveillance cameras. “The whole world is going through a new security environment,” says Shahid Firoz, 61, Port Grand’s developer. “We have to be very conscious of security just as any other significant facility anywhere in the world needs to be.”

Young people stroll the promenade eating burgers and fries and browsing through 60 stores and stalls that sell everything from high fashion to silver bracelets to ice cream. Ornate benches dot a landscaped area around a 150-year-old banyan tree. “Port Grand is something fresh for the city, very aesthetically pleasing and unique,” says Yasmine Ibrahim, a 25-year-old Lebanese American who is helping set up a student affairs office at a new university in Karachi.

One-third of Pakistan’s 170 million people are under the age of 15, which means the leisure business will continue to grow, says Naveed Vakil, head of research at AKD Securities. Per capita income has grown to $1,254 a year in June from $1,073 three years ago.

The appetite for things American is strong despite the rise in tensions between the two allies. Hardee’s opened its first Karachi outlet in September: In the first few days customers waited for hours. It plans to open 10 more restaurants in Pakistan in the next two and a half years, says franchisee Imran Ahmed Khan. U.S. movies are attracting crowds to the recently opened Atrium Cinemas, which would not be out of place in suburban Chicago. Current features include The Adventures of Tintin and the latest Twilight Saga installment. Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol is coming soon. Operator Nadeem Mandviwalla says the cinema industry in Pakistan is growing 30 percent a year.

Exposure to Western lifestyles through cable television and the Internet is raising demand for these goods and services. Pakistan has 20 million Internet users, compared with 133,900 a decade ago, while 25 foreign channels, such as CNN (TWX) and BBC World News, are now available. And for many Pakistanis, reruns of the U.S. sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond are a regular treat.

The bottom line: With per capita income rising quickly, Pakistan is developing a mass market eager for Western goods.

Pakistan's Consumers Flex Their Newfound Muscle - Businessweek
 
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The strength of the Indian rupee has everything to do with foreign capital inflows ..without these, the INR could collapse and there could be a balance of payments crisis. The real danger is the growing dependence on hot money that can leave India as fast as it coming in.

Indian economic growth is based on huge domestic consumption , India has got a vast burgeoning middle class which is driving force for growth .
 
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Indian economic growth is based on huge domestic consumption , India has got a vast burgeoning middle class which is driving force for growth .

In case you haven't heard, the Indian rupee is hitting record lows as investors pull out large sums of US $$ from India.

In India, overseas investors pulled out $842 million from equities last week, the biggest weekly outflow in six months, data from the regulator show. That sent the rupee to a record low of 52.73 on Nov. 22. The currency gained 0.6 percent to 51.965 yesterday, paring this year’s drop to 14 percent, the worst performance among Asian currencies.

Indian Stocks May Be Hit Most in Emerging Markets, Tata Says - Businessweek
 
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For human development, there's nothing more basic than sanitation.

India will not reach its Millennium Development Goal on sanitation before 2047, while Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal will not achieve the target before 2028, according to a United Nations report released on the eve of World Toilet Day 2011.

The WaterAid report titled "Off-track, off-target: Why investment in water, sanitation and hygiene is not reaching those who need it most" says that 818 million Indians and 98 million Pakistanis lack access to toilets. It also reports that 148 million Indians and 18 million Pakistanis do not have adequate access to safe drinking water.

Haq's Musings: India & Pakistan Off-Track, Off-Target on Toilets
 
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