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.Quality of Life Index by Country 2024 Mid-Year
www.numbeo.com
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.
