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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.
 
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.

Where in Pakistan did you get ripped off?
 
everywhere
tell me any food item price in Pakistan and i will tell you how much in Canada

I was in Pakistan two months ago and I think a dozen eggs cost like 120 rupees. Also desi egg is like 20 rupees for one. Also if you go to big shops instead of bazaar you will definitely get ripped off man.

brown bread sliced was like 90 rupees from bakery. And jam I think cost 400 rupees at most.

These are prices from Bahawalpur, btw.
 
I was in Pakistan two months ago and I think a dozen eggs cost like 120 rupees. Also desi egg is like 20 rupees for one. Also if you go to big shops instead of bazaar you will definitely get ripped off man.

brown bread sliced was like 90 rupees from bakery. And jam I think cost 400 rupees at most.

These are prices from Bahawalpur, btw.

how much are eggs in winter I only go to Pakistan in winter.
by the way you are only looking and items and their cost, I am talking about the their price with respect to size

Example this is the butter size, easily available for 2.50 Canadian
1627866561369.png


this bread is 1.99
1627866804278.png


these sizes are not even heard of in Pakistan.

so its not just the bread and price but its bread(size) with price
 
how much are eggs in winter I only go to Pakistan in winter.
by the way you are only looking and items and their cost, I am talking about the their price with respect to size

Example this is the butter size, easily available for 2.50 Canadian
View attachment 766762

this bread is 1.99
View attachment 766763

these sizes are not even heard of in Pakistan.

so its not just the bread and price but its bread(size) with price
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.
 
Not to disrespect any Pakistani, but the productivity levels among the masses are too low. Pakistani men should be working 60hr weeks to build the country. This falls on the failures of all past governments, and individuals that can't think beyond their selfish short-term desires.

But there is now a little uplift, so not all bad.
 
I know you always come up with post against PTI, must be something in the water.
Every country tax people, wake up my friend.


It is all relative. Even in Europe and USA there are plenty of poor people, homeless people, destitute.
Pakistan is cheap without shadow of a doubt.
They do consider everything in Cost of Living and comparative Purchasing power capabilities.

Look at my post earlier. I have given examples of selected countries to clarify the points.

So, you may be talking about purchasing power index.

Purchasing Power Index by Country 2020 (Bangladesh 33, Pakistan 30).


I am no economist - but I remember that GINI coefficient is a ratio where equal/unequal growth was expressed in a numbered index. There - Bangladesh and Pakistan are very similar, just north of 30 or so (so is most of the subcontinent). However Philippines is interesting because they have exceeded 40, like some undeveloped African countries - so maybe more unequal growth situation.

I know for a fact that the Philippines is a textbook example of unequal growth (vast swatches of poor just like ours while some rich live in near-Western standards).

 
Normally people demand service before payment.

Is it not a fair demand since living is dirt cheap as per GoP?

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!
 
So, you may be talking about purchasing power index.

Purchasing Power Index by Country 2020 (Bangladesh 33, Pakistan 30).



I am no economist - but I remember that GINI coefficient is a ratio where equal/unequal growth was expressed in a numbered index. There - Bangladesh and Pakistan are very similar, just north of 30 or so (so is most of the subcontinent). However Philippines is interesting because they have exceeded 40, like some undeveloped African countries - so maybe more unequal growth situation.

I know for a fact that the Philippines is a textbook example of unequal growth (vast swatches of poor just like ours while some rich live in near-Western standards).


No I am not. The figures I produced were from their own data , cost of living index vs the purchasing power.
What they have done is weighted it. Otherwise, Purchasing power and cost of living on their own does not tell the whole story.

The real issue is what people can buy from that purchasing power to maintain their living i.e. cost of living.
Otherwise, the rich countries naturally would have more purchasing power. But when you pitched the cost of living against that purchasing power, many western countries have negative purchasing power.

For example, cost of living index for both UK and USA is almost similar, UK 70.64 and USA 70.55 but their Purchasing power is different UK only 77.47 and USA 94.32.
This mean despite having similar cost of living, UK is expensive for its population, while in the USA people can easily afford their cost of living and still save quiet high % of their income.
That's why I picked UAE as an example, because their Purchasing power vs their cost of living is quiet high, meaning, people have lot more savings.
 
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No I am not. The figures I produced were from their own data , cost of living index vs the purchasing power.
What they have done is weighted it. Otherwise, Purchasing power and cost of living on their own does not tell the whole story.

The real issue is what people can buy from that purchasing power to maintain their living i.e. cost of living.
Otherwise, the rich countries naturally would have more purchasing power. But when you pitched the cost of living against that purchasing power, many western countries have negative purchasing power.

For example, cost of living index for both UK and USA is almost similar, UK 70.64 and USA 70.55 but their Purchasing power is different UK only 77.47 and USA 94.32.
This mean despite having similar cost of living, UK is expensive for its population, while in the USA people can easily effort their cost of living and still save quiet high % of their income.
That's why I picked UAE as an example, because their Purchasing power vs their cost of living is quiet high, meaning, people have lot more savings.

Thanks brother - great explanation... :-)
 
Thanks brother - great explanation... :-)

Thank you brother.

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.
 
View attachment 766648

State Minister for Information Farrukh Habib on Sunday said that Pakistan has been ranked cheapest country to live in by the World Population Review in its annual report about the “cost of living for countries in 2021”.

In a series of tweets, he said the report showed that the country’s cost of living was 18.58 with 225.19 million population, followed by Afghanistan and India where the cost of living was 24.51 and 25.14 with population of 39.835 million and 1.39 billion, respectively.

The minister said the cost of living in Uzbekistan was 30.25, 30.69 in Nepal, 31.75 in Nigeria, 38.72 in Vietnam, 39.46 in Malaysia and 42.64 in Brazil.

He said the most expensive countries to live in were Cayman Islands and Bermuda where the cost of living was 141.64 and 138.22, respectively.

The cost of living in Switzerland was 122.67, while Norway had 104.49, he added.

Farrukh said the metrics used by the international organization to determine cost of living in each country included rent index, purchasing power, consumer price and grocery indices.



View attachment 766650

The cost of living maybe the lowest and so are the wages, the rate of people falling below the poverty line is also alarming.
This is a comparative analysis of cost of living. The comparison is done with New York City.

So 6 Pakistani cities are mentioned in this respect:

Screenshot_2021-08-02-14-36-04.png


1. Peshawar :19.93 (comparatively the cheapest city monitored)
2. Multan: 20.38
3. Karachi: 22.13
4. Rawalpindi: 22.63
5. Lahore: 22.65 (second costliest city of Pakistan)
6. Islamabad: 23.14 (the costliest city of Pakistan)


Screenshot_2021-08-02-14-36-23.png


From the above statistics, one can see a varying cost of living even within Pakistan.
It is possible, some places that are not included could be more expensive or less expensive in comparison to the set standard.

But the generalization is, urban areas/ provincial capitals/ cosmopolitans are more costly when compared with rural/ less developed cities.
 

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