ISLAMABAD: Envisioning political stability and consensus-based national economic agenda at its forefront, the Nawaz Sharif government has placed an ambitious plan under Vision 2025 to increase the per capita income from $1,299 to $4,200, bring down poverty from 49 percent population to 20 percent and increase the exports up to $150 billion.
The Vision 2025, going to be unveiled by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on August 11 (a copy of which is exclusively available with The News), reveals that the government envisions eliminating power loadshedding by 2018. It intends to bridge the current electricity supply-demand gap by 2018, and cater to growing future demand by addition of 25,000MW by 2025.
The plan envisages doubling power generation to 45,000MW to provide uninterrupted and affordable electricity, and increase electricity access from 67% to over 90% of the population. It also targets reducing the average cost per unit by over 25% by improving generation mix (15%) and reducing distribution losses (10%); (b) increase percentage of indigenous sources of power generation to over 50%; and (c) address demand management by increasing usage of energy efficient appliances/products to 80%.
The Vision 2025 aims at increasing the water storage capacity to 90 days, improve efficiency of usage in agriculture by 20%, and ensure access to clean drinking water for all Pakistanis and reduce food insecure population from 60% to 30%.
It also envisages increasing primary school enrollment and completion rate to 100% and literacy rate to 90%, increasing higher education coverage from 7% to 12 %, and increasing the number of PhDs from 7,000 to 25,000, improving primary and secondary gender parity index to 1, and increasing the female workforce participation rate from 24% to 45%, increasing the proportion of population with access to improved sanitation from 48% to 90%, reducing infant mortality rate from 74 to less than 40 (per 1,000 births) and reducing maternal mortality rate from 276 to less than 140 (per 1,000 births), reducing the incidence/prevalence of hepatitis, diahorrea, diabetes and heart disease by 50% and eyeing world championship in three sports and 30 medals in the Asian games.
The Vision 2025 aims that Pakistan will become one of the 25 largest economies in the world, thus, gaining the upper middle income country status, reducing the poverty level from 49% in 2013 to less than 20% as measured by the Multidimensional Poverty Index, increasing annual Foreign Direct Investment from USD600 million to over USD25 billion and increasing the tax-to-GDP ratio from 8.5% to 18%.
On improved governance, the Vision 2025 envisages that Pakistan will be placed in the top 50th percentile for political stability (from bottom 1 percentile), no violence/terrorism (from bottom 1 percentile), and control of corruption (from bottom 13th percentile) as measured by the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.
The Vision envisaged that Pakistan will be ranked among the top 50 countries on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Rankings, increase Diaspora investment (via remittances) in private sector from $14 billion to $40 billion, create at least five global Pakistani brands (having more than 50% sales coming from consumers outside Pakistan), and make ‘Made in Pakistan’ a symbol of quality, improve Pakistan’s score on the World Bank Institute’s Knowledge Economy Index from 2.2 to 4.0, and increase internet penetration to over 50%, increase the number of tourist arrivals to 2 million and increase road density from 32 km/100 km2 to 64 km/100 km2, and share of rail in transport from 4% to 20%.
Based upon seven pillars, the Vision 2025 states that the government will focus on key areas including developing social and human capital, achieving sustained, indigenous and inclusive growth, governance, institutional reforms and modernisation of public sector, energy, water and food security, private sector-led growth, developing a competitive knowledge economy and modernizsing transportation infrastructure and greater regional connectivity.
The Vision 2025 states that if we look at the recent successes in development by South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India and Turkey, political stability and continuity of policies comes out as a pre-requisite for development. No country has developed with instability and chaos. The smooth transition of 2013 from one political government to another has strengthened the belief in political stability, it added.
A healthy sign is that political leadership across the political divide has shown greater maturity in the recent past. “There is a national consensus on economic agenda and national security,” the Vision 2025 states.
Furthering this process will ensure prolonged periods of political and economic stability, which will have an enormous impact on economic growth, income generation, human development and income distribution.
“Pakistan Vision 2025 recognises that without an environment of security, economic development can neither be meaningful nor sustainable. Increased investment, growth and economic revival is impossible without peace and security,” it further states.
A peaceful neighborhood is a prerequisite to economic growth. Externally, Pakistan desires “peace with dignity”. We pursue a policy of zero conflict. We wish to resolve all disputes with our neighbours peacefully. Pakistan’s ability to bridge regions like South Asia, West Asia and Central Asia and provide an economic corridor will be strengthened by this strategy. The policy of maintaining deterrence for our national security is critical and has to be maintained.
Pakistan, the Vision 2025 states, has been facing formidable security challenges, particularly after 9/11. The national internal security policy provides the framework to achieve this goal. Reform of the criminal justice system will improve law and order and counter-terrorism strategies.
Rule of Law: Sustained growth and development do not take place in an environment that is not characterised by the supremacy of the rule of law. Therefore, establishment and application of the rule of law — which includes but is not limited to: enforcing contracts, regulating the market, breaking barriers to competition and the protection of the fundamental rights of every Pakistani citizen, is a necessary condition for the realisation of the Vision. The government will ensure strict enforcement of rule of law by strengthening judicial system, revamping police and criminal justice system, reviewing rules and regulations and re-enforcing formal and informal channels of dispute resolution. The focus will be on ensuring equal application of law and order on all segments of society.
PPP: The public-private partnerships will be promoted through a comprehensive policy regime. A Bureau of Infrastructure Development (BID) will be established to coordinate and oversee private sector’s participation in infrastructure development and provide a one-stop shop facility for project approval, processing and financing.
A Pakistan Business and Economic Council, chaired by the prime minister and with equal membership of public and private sectors, will be established to act as a high-level forum for guiding the overall direction of economy.
Implementation, Implementation & Implementation: The Vision 2025 fully recognises the acute implementation challenges — including push-back from vested interests — that will be faced to successfully deliver Vision 2025.
To allow active engagement, collaboration and even leadership roles, all citizens will be encouraged to become Vision Champions — at district, provincial and federal levels. Vision Champions will be selected on the basis of their contribution to exceptional new ideas, notable accomplishments in line with the Vision 2025 aspirations, and leadership roles in community-based initiatives.
Pakistan Vision 2025 seeks a new compact with the people of Pakistan to redefine the very nature of state-citizen relationship, and put it on a new footing, which is underpinned by a comprehensive and fully inclusive Citizen’s Charter. The criminal justice system in Pakistan is in urgent need of reform. Such reform would address critical aspects such as access, speed, cost and fairness in dispensation of justice, while remaining within the confines of due process as enunciated in the Constitution.
Under Vision 2025, the Government of Pakistan is committed to making the government open, transparent, accountable, and responsive to citizens.
Pakistan Vision 2025 seeks to elevate Pakistan’s position from a lower middle income to an upper-middle income country. The economy is targeted to grow by over 8% between 2017 and 2025 with single digit inflation.
To accomplish these targets, we need tax-to-GDP ratio of 16-18%, and investment rate in the range of 22-25 % of GDP financed through domestic savings of 18-21% of GDP. We envision that market capitalisation will increase from currently 27% of GDP ($54.28 billion) to over 60% of GDP by 2025.
A robust inflow of foreign savings is estimated at 3-4% of GDP in the medium-term to long-term, which would enable us to finance additional investment of up to 2.7% of GDP until 2025.
To release resources for the private sector, we will bring down fiscal deficit below 4% of GDP in the long run and attain the domestic savings rate of 18-21% of GDP in order to finance investment from domestic resources.
Formalising the Parallel Economy: The Vision 2025 states that the share of Pakistan’s informal economy is estimated to be more than 50% and employment trends also show that informal sector is the largest employer of the workforce. The informal sector provided employment to 73.5% of non-agricultural workforce in 2010-11 and trending upward.
We target that by 2025 at least half of the businesses in the informal economy will have entered the formal economy.Governance, institutional reform & modernisation of the public sector: Governance is the central pivot which underpins realisation of key national objectives, and is a cross cutting theme which simultaneously runs across the other six pillars of the Vision. Pakistan Vision 2025 affords special consideration to quality of governance and economic management in the country. A responsive, inclusive, transparent and accountable system of governance is envisaged through adoption of a holistic approach — from policy to strategy to implementation and delivery, encompassing all administrative levels — federal, provincial, regional, district and local — in a rule-based, result-oriented perspective.
Vision 2025 sets per capita income at $4,200 - thenews.com.pk
