Desperate Time Desperate Measures - Failing Work Force

[The Accountant]

Well I'm just saying

a) India and Pakistan don't really compete on agricultural goods to begin with. No country has ever gotten industrialised and developed by pure export of agri products for a reason.

b) Any export Margins in that sector dont come about by any "living standards" difference to begin with

c) Living standards need hard data to compare, it is of dubious quality in the region. But certainly Pakistan is not "better" if you look at the multi poverty index (which factors in all the various forms of poverty across the board...and not just income)...and say human development index.



Source? There are ton of different poverty rate measures to begin with. Hence why I go with MPI these days since most countries have been brought up to date there more or less. MPI was in big fashion here to compare Pakistan to India...when India's survey was from 2005 (full decade earlier to the year used in Pakistan case). Suddenly not a squeak on it much anymore.



Unemployment "rate" means something in south asia and most of developing world? Far larger issue is underemployment and labour participation rate. This comes back to dubious quality/relevant data I mentioned earlier. Unemployment rate specifically refers to those that are looking for a job but cannot find one. That is a tiny portion of the problem in developing world.



Where?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jagr...vs-pakistan-economic-comparision-1497247847-1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...els-higher-than-Pakistans-says-UN-report.html

 

[Humble Analyst]

Dear all, this is continuation of the series I started with the title “Desperate Time Desperate Measures - A differential view of Pakistan's Economic Problems”. A big thanks for all of those who contributed.

After consolidating all the problems now I have moved to second stage i.e. prioritize the issues as per its severity and then try to find out the possible solutions.

Out of all the issues, I feel that lack of skilled work force is the biggest hurdle in development of Pakistan.

To prove my point I would refer to the alternate approach for computation of GDP (known as income approach). The formula of income approach of GDP is as follows:

GDP = Salaries and wages + rent income + interest income + business profits

Salaries and wages is one of the components of GDP along with Business Profit; hence, higher the salary higher will be the GDP. However, on the contrary, increase in salary without increase in productivity will only result in reduction in business profits and hence overall GDP will remain the same.

By the formula of GDP it is obvious that increase in salaries without decreasing the profit will definitely results in increase in GDP. However, if salaries increased at a pace faster than competitors then it will render the product expensive and in competitive in the market. For example, Pakistani textile items is expensive than similar products being manufactured in Bangladesh as minimum salary of Pakistan is 50% higher than Bangladesh. It means we have to keep the salary cost per unit of goods manufactured minimum but still keep the salaries and wages per employee higher.

Now on the other hand in developed economies salaries are much higher than ours but still they have high GDPs and still they are able to sell their products. The core reason behind keeping the product competitive while keeping the labor cost high is by selling premium products. Premium products have more profit margins and hence can afford to give higher salaries and therefore having higher GDP. For example prime exports of developed economies are plant & machinery, cars, aircrafts, weapons, softwares, and other high tech items.

Now without going into further details of complexities of GDP let’s summarize the discussion so far. Generic relationship between labor force and economy is as follows (without reference to Pakistan):


1. Salary is one of the component of GDP.

2. Increase in salary will result in increase in GDP (provided that it is not at the cost of profits).

3. However, salary per unit cannot be higher than the salaries of competitors.

4. Backward economy produce products which has low salaries for its workers (Like agriculture)

5. Advance economies works on products which has higher salaries for its workers (such as programming, robotics, defense, auto industry).

6. Inefficient work force will result in expensive and low quality product ultimately results in lower profit and lower sales which will also negatively impacts the economy.

Some people might argue that economy of a country is much bigger and the problems we are discussing here are micro economic problems pertaining to individual companies. However, consider business units as small organs of a whole body and assume if organs are not working properly then how is it possible for body to work properly. The actual issues of Pakistan lies at micro-economic level and if we get them solved we can improve our economic output.

Pakistan has a huge population of 220 million; however, most of the work force is unskilled and uneducated as a result of which we are manufacturing basic goods only and compete with products of low income countries such as Bangladesh, Africa, India and even Afghanistan.

For example if majority of workforce is producing wheat and rice then they have to compete with the farmers in Bangladesh and India producing the same product but ironically the wages and living standard of Bangladeshi worker and Indian rural worker are even lower than Pakistan and hence Pakistani product will be expensive and will have less demand unless we reduce standard of living of our worker (or in other words reduce salary further) lower than competing countries.

In short the job of economic managers is to keep the salary cost per product as low as possible but keep the salary per employee as high as possible just like the developed economies.

Another way of reducing the cost of production but without reducing the salary of your workforce is by making them more efficient in comparison to your competitor. For example if a farmer in Bangladesh can produce 1 ton of wheat (while keeping all other factors same) and Pakistani farmer can produce 1.2 ton then it means we can sell our product cheaper and will have more demand.

Without getting much into descriptive details, I am listing key problems associated with our work force and then we will discuss each of them in detail and will also evaluate possible solutions.

· Untrained workforce.

· Uneducated work force.

· In-efficient work force.

· No regards to ethics.

· Lack of training institutes.

· No regards to quality and wastages.

· Resistant to change and inability to adopt technology.


· Untrained workforce

This is the biggest of all the problem. Pakistan’s work force is mostly ill trained starting from top level executive till the end of the chain to unskilled workers.


First I would like to discuss the issues associated with top executives. Over the history of our economy we failed to create any professional industrial conglomerate except for Engro. Even Engro’s achievement are limited to within country only. This is failure of our executives that they failed to grow any single group beyond our boundaries. Despite having a significant foot print in textile industry at the time when textile was one of the most powerful industry of the world. We have not a single internationally recognized brand due to failure of our executive or entrepreneurial workforce.


Hiring and promotions are motivated more on personal preferences and ethnic associations rather than merit. Decision makings are based on personal preferences rather than demands of the merits. Reliance is more on gut feelings rather than financial feasibilities and projections. Whereas executive fails to design and implement efficient process capable of manufacturing product in the lowest possible costs.


On the lower end of work force we have inefficient line managers and supervisors who failed to design and run the process in efficient manner. Productivity is low whereas wastages are huge.


· Uneducated work force.

While untrained work force means inefficient work force, uneducated work force means that you are forced to work within low tech and low income industries only. We have plenty of workforce that can’t even read or write it means they can only do low level routine tasks only. Therefore, they are competing with the lowest possible wage earning work force living in countries like Bangladesh, Africa, Sirilanka and Philippines.

Such work force can’t even read the instructions of using fertilizer or pest control spray to achieve the most optimum results resultantly they are relying on decade old manufacturing process and hence have very low productivity.

It means no matter how many work hours we invest or how hard work we work we will always be below poverty line as we have plenty of competing workers all around the world who are willing to do same job at a salary even lower than ours. To develop or grow economy we have to educate such work force to a minimum level.

· In-efficient work force.

Pakistani work force in general is inefficient. We are so inefficient that rather than competing with other employees based on productivity we tend to hold on to information and knowledgebase from our colleagues resulting in inefficiencies and duplication of work.

Wastages are very high and people are tuned to work in relax environment without taking into account that time means money and more time we waste more expensive the product will become.

Furthermore, there are unnecessary layers of work force. In a world of horizontal organizational structures we are still working with vertical structures where manager feels it insulting to do their own analysis and feel that managerial staff is just for decision making and hence most of the departments are carrying additional work force putting more burden on product costs. And ultimately results in a product non-competitive in market.

· Lack of training institutes.

The above mentioned issues are a big problem in delivering the required product. However, such issues can be resolved by training the work force but unfortunately we lack any significant training institutes in Pakistan. As a result a work force entering in the institutes learn only by experiment and by on-job training which cost a fortunes to organizations.


Recommended Solutions

Rest of the issues already covered indirectly above. Now a million dollar question is how to sort these issues. Below are some of the suggestion from my side which we need to take immediately in order to address the problems mentioned above. Kindly note that these are out of the box solution specific to our problems and I expect you guys to share your thoughts as well:

A. Promulgate a law in which each business unit would be required to get association with universities and allow them to study the business process and recommend improvements. (System like this are already in practice in audit and medical field).

B. Introduce PhD programs in business management with special focus on behavioral studies.

C. Setup government backed trade institutes for each and every industry with the sole purpose of developing the work force at each level and teach them the latest trends prevailing in the industry.

D. Work on development of high profit high value addition industries that helps raising the per capita income of our workforce.

E. Establish quality institutes to give an internationally acceptable quality certifications and trained the work force to acquire the quality standards in the product.

F. Legislate to secure employees against discriminatory practices specially pertaining to ethnicity.

G. Setup special industrial zones with a complete facilities available in the zone including but not limited to:

a. Industry specific labor

b. Industry specific training institutes.

c. Industry specific government departments.

d. Industry specific research centers.

e. Industry specific warehousing facilities.

f. Industry specific expert data base.

H. Setup industry specific think tank community with regular publications from the community.

I. Make ethics part of basic education system.


@Peaceful Civilian @Oscar @Yaseen1 @AZADPAKISTAN2009 @CriticalThought @BHarwana @niaz
@ziaulislam @Jf Thunder @VCheng @Sidacca @313ghazi @niaz @American Pakistani @Verve @Mrc @fitpOsitive @Khafee @araz @Zibago @Imran Khan @DESERT FIGHTER @Horus @ghazi52 @Dubious@Areesh @Zarvan @BATMAN @AgNoStiC MuSliM @MastanKhan @Arsalan @WAJsal @Indus Pakistan@menticore @Pakhtoon yum @Syed Hammad Ahmed @The Eagle @HRK @MUSTAKSHAF @Yaseen1 @ziaulislam @Retired Troll, @PakSword, @Maarkhoor, @Reichsmarschall, @Well.wisher and @RealNapster @Shahzaz ud din @American Pakistani @valkyr_96 @PakGuns @shahbaz baig @VCheng @letsrock @CrazyZ @Sidacca @PAK spy @zulu

This is good however can tell the positive potentials too so there is some positivity.
Good work and effort and written with sincerity and good analytical skills.

 

[Pakhtoon yum]

Dear all, this is continuation of the series I started with the title “Desperate Time Desperate Measures - A differential view of Pakistan's Economic Problems”. A big thanks for all of those who contributed.

After consolidating all the problems now I have moved to second stage i.e. prioritize the issues as per its severity and then try to find out the possible solutions.

Out of all the issues, I feel that lack of skilled work force is the biggest hurdle in development of Pakistan.

To prove my point I would refer to the alternate approach for computation of GDP (known as income approach). The formula of income approach of GDP is as follows:

GDP = Salaries and wages + rent income + interest income + business profits

Salaries and wages is one of the components of GDP along with Business Profit; hence, higher the salary higher will be the GDP. However, on the contrary, increase in salary without increase in productivity will only result in reduction in business profits and hence overall GDP will remain the same.

By the formula of GDP it is obvious that increase in salaries without decreasing the profit will definitely results in increase in GDP. However, if salaries increased at a pace faster than competitors then it will render the product expensive and in competitive in the market. For example, Pakistani textile items is expensive than similar products being manufactured in Bangladesh as minimum salary of Pakistan is 50% higher than Bangladesh. It means we have to keep the salary cost per unit of goods manufactured minimum but still keep the salaries and wages per employee higher.

Now on the other hand in developed economies salaries are much higher than ours but still they have high GDPs and still they are able to sell their products. The core reason behind keeping the product competitive while keeping the labor cost high is by selling premium products. Premium products have more profit margins and hence can afford to give higher salaries and therefore having higher GDP. For example prime exports of developed economies are plant & machinery, cars, aircrafts, weapons, softwares, and other high tech items.

Now without going into further details of complexities of GDP let’s summarize the discussion so far. Generic relationship between labor force and economy is as follows (without reference to Pakistan):


1. Salary is one of the component of GDP.

2. Increase in salary will result in increase in GDP (provided that it is not at the cost of profits).

3. However, salary per unit cannot be higher than the salaries of competitors.

4. Backward economy produce products which has low salaries for its workers (Like agriculture)

5. Advance economies works on products which has higher salaries for its workers (such as programming, robotics, defense, auto industry).

6. Inefficient work force will result in expensive and low quality product ultimately results in lower profit and lower sales which will also negatively impacts the economy.

Some people might argue that economy of a country is much bigger and the problems we are discussing here are micro economic problems pertaining to individual companies. However, consider business units as small organs of a whole body and assume if organs are not working properly then how is it possible for body to work properly. The actual issues of Pakistan lies at micro-economic level and if we get them solved we can improve our economic output.

Pakistan has a huge population of 220 million; however, most of the work force is unskilled and uneducated as a result of which we are manufacturing basic goods only and compete with products of low income countries such as Bangladesh, Africa, India and even Afghanistan.

For example if majority of workforce is producing wheat and rice then they have to compete with the farmers in Bangladesh and India producing the same product but ironically the wages and living standard of Bangladeshi worker and Indian rural worker are even lower than Pakistan and hence Pakistani product will be expensive and will have less demand unless we reduce standard of living of our worker (or in other words reduce salary further) lower than competing countries.

In short the job of economic managers is to keep the salary cost per product as low as possible but keep the salary per employee as high as possible just like the developed economies.

Another way of reducing the cost of production but without reducing the salary of your workforce is by making them more efficient in comparison to your competitor. For example if a farmer in Bangladesh can produce 1 ton of wheat (while keeping all other factors same) and Pakistani farmer can produce 1.2 ton then it means we can sell our product cheaper and will have more demand.

Without getting much into descriptive details, I am listing key problems associated with our work force and then we will discuss each of them in detail and will also evaluate possible solutions.

· Untrained workforce.

· Uneducated work force.

· In-efficient work force.

· No regards to ethics.

· Lack of training institutes.

· No regards to quality and wastages.

· Resistant to change and inability to adopt technology.


· Untrained workforce

This is the biggest of all the problem. Pakistan’s work force is mostly ill trained starting from top level executive till the end of the chain to unskilled workers.


First I would like to discuss the issues associated with top executives. Over the history of our economy we failed to create any professional industrial conglomerate except for Engro. Even Engro’s achievement are limited to within country only. This is failure of our executives that they failed to grow any single group beyond our boundaries. Despite having a significant foot print in textile industry at the time when textile was one of the most powerful industry of the world. We have not a single internationally recognized brand due to failure of our executive or entrepreneurial workforce.


Hiring and promotions are motivated more on personal preferences and ethnic associations rather than merit. Decision makings are based on personal preferences rather than demands of the merits. Reliance is more on gut feelings rather than financial feasibilities and projections. Whereas executive fails to design and implement efficient process capable of manufacturing product in the lowest possible costs.


On the lower end of work force we have inefficient line managers and supervisors who failed to design and run the process in efficient manner. Productivity is low whereas wastages are huge.


· Uneducated work force.

While untrained work force means inefficient work force, uneducated work force means that you are forced to work within low tech and low income industries only. We have plenty of workforce that can’t even read or write it means they can only do low level routine tasks only. Therefore, they are competing with the lowest possible wage earning work force living in countries like Bangladesh, Africa, Sirilanka and Philippines.

Such work force can’t even read the instructions of using fertilizer or pest control spray to achieve the most optimum results resultantly they are relying on decade old manufacturing process and hence have very low productivity.

It means no matter how many work hours we invest or how hard work we work we will always be below poverty line as we have plenty of competing workers all around the world who are willing to do same job at a salary even lower than ours. To develop or grow economy we have to educate such work force to a minimum level.

· In-efficient work force.

Pakistani work force in general is inefficient. We are so inefficient that rather than competing with other employees based on productivity we tend to hold on to information and knowledgebase from our colleagues resulting in inefficiencies and duplication of work.

Wastages are very high and people are tuned to work in relax environment without taking into account that time means money and more time we waste more expensive the product will become.

Furthermore, there are unnecessary layers of work force. In a world of horizontal organizational structures we are still working with vertical structures where manager feels it insulting to do their own analysis and feel that managerial staff is just for decision making and hence most of the departments are carrying additional work force putting more burden on product costs. And ultimately results in a product non-competitive in market.

· Lack of training institutes.

The above mentioned issues are a big problem in delivering the required product. However, such issues can be resolved by training the work force but unfortunately we lack any significant training institutes in Pakistan. As a result a work force entering in the institutes learn only by experiment and by on-job training which cost a fortunes to organizations.


Recommended Solutions

Rest of the issues already covered indirectly above. Now a million dollar question is how to sort these issues. Below are some of the suggestion from my side which we need to take immediately in order to address the problems mentioned above. Kindly note that these are out of the box solution specific to our problems and I expect you guys to share your thoughts as well:

A. Promulgate a law in which each business unit would be required to get association with universities and allow them to study the business process and recommend improvements. (System like this are already in practice in audit and medical field).

B. Introduce PhD programs in business management with special focus on behavioral studies.

C. Setup government backed trade institutes for each and every industry with the sole purpose of developing the work force at each level and teach them the latest trends prevailing in the industry.

D. Work on development of high profit high value addition industries that helps raising the per capita income of our workforce.

E. Establish quality institutes to give an internationally acceptable quality certifications and trained the work force to acquire the quality standards in the product.

F. Legislate to secure employees against discriminatory practices specially pertaining to ethnicity.

G. Setup special industrial zones with a complete facilities available in the zone including but not limited to:

a. Industry specific labor

b. Industry specific training institutes.

c. Industry specific government departments.

d. Industry specific research centers.

e. Industry specific warehousing facilities.

f. Industry specific expert data base.

H. Setup industry specific think tank community with regular publications from the community.

I. Make ethics part of basic education system.


@Peaceful Civilian @Oscar @Yaseen1 @AZADPAKISTAN2009 @CriticalThought @BHarwana @niaz
@ziaulislam @Jf Thunder @VCheng @Sidacca @313ghazi @niaz @American Pakistani @Verve @Mrc @fitpOsitive @Khafee @araz @Zibago @Imran Khan @DESERT FIGHTER @Horus @ghazi52 @Dubious@Areesh @Zarvan @BATMAN @AgNoStiC MuSliM @MastanKhan @Arsalan @WAJsal @Indus Pakistan@menticore @Pakhtoon yum @Syed Hammad Ahmed @The Eagle @HRK @MUSTAKSHAF @Yaseen1 @ziaulislam @Retired Troll, @PakSword, @Maarkhoor, @Reichsmarschall, @Well.wisher and @RealNapster @Shahzaz ud din @American Pakistani @valkyr_96 @PakGuns @shahbaz baig @VCheng @letsrock @CrazyZ @Sidacca @PAK spy @zulu

If only people like you were in the GOP

 

[Nilgiri]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jagr...vs-pakistan-economic-comparision-1497247847-1

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wo...els-higher-than-Pakistans-says-UN-report.html

Tons of flat out wrong data in the 1st one ( i can pick thru it if you really want to)....or way out of date.

2nd link is from 2011. And is the same MPI I am referring to now.

The difference is data regarding India is no longer from 2005...(which is why MPI always put the caveat to check which year their data for the country comes from before comparing them).

There is only cpl years difference in MPI source data now between the two countries.

Pakistan is put at level of 44% and India around 28%:

http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/MPI

 

[The Accountant]

Tons of flat out wrong data in the 1st one ( i can pick thru it if you really want to)....or way out of date.

2nd link is from 2011. And is the same MPI I am referring to now.

The difference is data regarding India is no longer from 2005...(which is why MPI always put the caveat to check which year their data for the country comes from before comparing them).

There is only cpl years difference in MPI source data now between the two countries.

Pakistan is put at level of 44% and India around 28%:

http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/MPI

This is because of economic inequity in India is much higher than of Pakistan ... Look at the percentage of people living below poverty line based on PPP. 21% of people in India are living below poverty line v/s 6% of Pakistan...

This was my last reply as you are derailing the thread making it a Pakistan v/s India whereas this is just a Pakistan only thread ...

 

[VCheng]

Unfortunately you wouldn't understand as for you the only solution to the problem of Pakistan is secularism ... Anyways, rather then skeptical about the long term nature of solutions I suggest if you could share the solutions to the problem (if you have any other than proposing secularism) ...

Unfortunately you continue to lie about my views very dishonestly. Shame on you and your ilk.

I am not a proponent of secularism. Religion is a good thing. The only thing I oppose is mixing matters of religion with matters of State. I am not against religion. Similarly, I am not against the Army. I am only against the Army doing illegal acts.

And no education system can work properly in serving the nation if it is designed to produce religious zealobots like you, rather than a useful workforce, to remain on topic in this thread.

 

[Nilgiri]

This is because of economic inequity in India is much higher than of Pakistan ... Look at the percentage of people living below poverty line based on PPP. 21% of people in India are living below poverty line v/s 6% of Pakistan...

This was my last reply as you are derailing the thread making it a Pakistan v/s India whereas this is just a Pakistan only thread ...

The thing is income poverty is only one facet of poverty. If someone earns 1 "international" dollar in one country, but another earns 2 dollars in another (in some medium of physical consumption even as PPP tries to measure)....doesnt mean the 2nd guy automatically is doing twice as good (as it relates to being in poverty)...given it really matters what you are consuming and how those consumables/services are relevant in first place to not being in poverty.

If income poverty was the only argument, why does Pakistan in 2017/18 have 22% of its people in "severe multidimensional poverty" compared to 9% for India in 2015/16?

BTW Pakistan survey data has been updated to 2017/2018:

http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/mpi_2019_table_1.pdf

It stands at about 38%, this is about 1% poverty decline per year as reported by your media:

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2011528/1-pml-n-govt-lifted-6-2-population-poverty/

Whereas from same report for India, MPI poverty headcount declined about 3% a year from 55% in 2005 to around 28% in 2015.

You are just going to have to keep fixing (much faster than you currently are) really basic things like infant mortality rate (15 years behind India):

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=IN-PK

and out of school rate (30 years behind India):

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.UNER.ZS?locations=IN-PK&view=chart

given these such things are instrumental to multi-spectrum poverty (health and education past just disposable income)

Look I also don't want to derail your thread anymore (if you think this is doing that), but I just had issue with you bringing up some faulty idea that agricultural rural poverty/living standards in the region is some big driving force in how competitive agricultural exports are. To begin with, any lower wages would not be the huge factor regarding that given the middleman + logistics price is much bigger component of an exported agri product from the region.

Rest of your initial post has some good points overall. If you are interested, you can point me to what you think should be discussed more there.

 

[American Pakistani]

Minimum wages are just fine. They are already higher than some similar/regional countries. Plus increasing minimum wages in Rupee term will put more pressure on already falling PKR, increase in minimum wage and people will buy more imported stuff.

Salary increment should be as per rules regulations and policies though.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Yaseen1]

I think more modern innovative technology industries are based on project based works for building prototypes and testing them before mass production .We should focus on good project management skills which involves enabling proper coordination between various departments of organisation and also outsourced organisations and team work and timely completion of projects.Bureaucratic organisation structure will not be effective in modern technology based industrty

 

[Microsoft]

All your proposed solutions need a foundation of at least 30 years of a solidly working education system. Starting to build a skyscraper from midair at the 10th floor on upwards is not likely to work very well. Please dream on!

Your words show a severe lack of individuality.

by the way are you really old?

 

[The Accountant]

The thing is income poverty is only one facet of poverty. If someone earns 1 "international" dollar in one country, but another earns 2 dollars in another (in some medium of physical consumption even as PPP tries to measure)....doesnt mean the 2nd guy automatically is doing twice as good (as it relates to being in poverty)...given it really matters what you are consuming and how those consumables/services are relevant in first place to not being in poverty.

If income poverty was the only argument, why does Pakistan in 2017/18 have 22% of its people in "severe multidimensional poverty" compared to 9% for India in 2015/16?

BTW Pakistan survey data has been updated to 2017/2018:

http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/mpi_2019_table_1.pdf

It stands at about 38%, this is about 1% poverty decline per year as reported by your media:

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2011528/1-pml-n-govt-lifted-6-2-population-poverty/

Whereas from same report for India, MPI poverty headcount declined about 3% a year from 55% in 2005 to around 28% in 2015.

You are just going to have to keep fixing (much faster than you currently are) really basic things like infant mortality rate (15 years behind India):

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=IN-PK

and out of school rate (30 years behind India):

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.UNER.ZS?locations=IN-PK&view=chart

given these such things are instrumental to multi-spectrum poverty (health and education past just disposable income)

Look I also don't want to derail your thread anymore (if you think this is doing that), but I just had issue with you bringing up some faulty idea that agricultural rural poverty/living standards in the region is some big driving force in how competitive agricultural exports are. To begin with, any lower wages would not be the huge factor regarding that given the middleman + logistics price is much bigger component of an exported agri product from the region.

Rest of your initial post has some good points overall. If you are interested, you can point me to what you think should be discussed more there.

Thanks for realizing that this discussion is derailing the thread. This is not Pakistan v/s India. The point I want to our people to realize that our (Pakistani) work force is engaged in activities which are inherently low paid in nature and we are fighting in increasing our pie of the share with the people similar to us. If two desperate jobless people will fight for a same job then they will end up reduction in wage rate and nothing more. It is time for Pakistanis to realize that this is world of specialization and a country of 220 people cannot develop unless we develop ourselves first.

Furthermore, this is just one of the many theories I am about to present on the economic problems of Pakistan. Basically we are in a situation similar to which India was in early 90s and then you guys decided to move towards high rewarding industries IT, defense industries and value addition products and now you are reaping the benefits.

We definitely need help from learned persons like you and you can help by sharing ideas India used in developing the work force. We might be similar in terms of rural population but in the field of IT, medical sciences, engineering and most importantly setting up big industrial conglomerate, India has done phenomenally well.

If you can share your experiences and make some suggestion then it would be really helpful and will be highly appreciated.

 

[VCheng]

It is time for Pakistanis to realize that this is world of specialization and a country of 220 people cannot develop unless we develop ourselves first.

That is an important point, and why I have always argued in favor of investments in social development over other priorities. Social development has lagged far behind for too long now, and playing catchup with the rest of the world is going to be exceedingly difficult for a few decades, at least.

 

[B.K.N]

investments in social development

What does investment in social development means

other priorities.

By other priorities you mean metro type projects

 

[The Accountant]

That is an important point, and why I have always argued in favor of investments in social development over other priorities. Social development has lagged far behind for too long now, and playing catchup with the rest of the world is going to be exceedingly difficult for a few decades, at least.

Agreed, we have to setup short term, medium term and long term targets.

Short term targets must be focused on creating think tanks, industry experts. we need to train them, support them and providing them platforms to develop and exchange knowledge base. Try to organize the existing business executives and work with them in their personal development. Although this is job of private sector but we being in desperate times , have to think of out of the box solution..

I was trying to find out any PhD course in Pakistan pertaining to business management but was surprised to find that there are very limited options.

 

[VCheng]

I was trying to find out any PhD course in Pakistan pertaining to business management but was surprised to find that there are very limited options.

I imagine LUMS and IBA would be the places to look for them.