Pakistan needs 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations

[mujahideen]

Pakistan needs 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations

KARACHI: A World Bank body has said that Pakistan need 159 years to catch up with the industrialised nations of the world, and that the country could reach this milestone by 2050 if it maintained an annual growth rate of 8.3 per cent, and in 2100 if it maintained a growth rate of 4.9 per cent.

It said during the last 10 years Pakistan has maintained the maximum growth rate of 4.8 with an average of 1.8 per year, and that its per capita GDP in 2006 was 2206 dollars.

According to it, India with a per capita GDP of 3308 dollars can catch up with industrialised nations in 50 years. During the last 10 years, India had the maximum growth rate of 7.7 per cent, with an average of 4.9 per cent, the Dawn quoted the report as saying.

The report, prepared by the Commission on Growth and Development noted that China, which in 2006 had per capita GDP of 6621 dollars, can catch up with industrialised countries in 23 years.

The Commission is based at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.

During the last 10 years, China has had an average growth rate of 8.3 per cent, with a maximum of 10.1 per cent.

The report further said that among the Muslim nations, Malaysia was the closest to catch up with industrialised nations, as it can reach this milestone in 35 years, followed by Iran, which can reach there in 54 years. Egypt needed 118 years, it added.

Pakistan needs 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations

 

[niaz]

There is little doubt in this assertion. With new govt bent upon undoing all the progress of the past 8 years and shelving Kala Bagh Dam for ever. What do you expect?

Without energy and water there is no economic progress but do our newly elected govt care about this??

It is an established fact that neither the price of oil nor price of food is going to come down. This govt has given up on both the items; how can you expect progress. Every one will soon see the effect as soon as subsidy on oil goes; as was mentioned in the news; and the international prices of oil and food are passed on to man on the street.

Another growth potential was Gawadar port. Baluchis were never keen on it. Mark my words, Gawadar port will go the way of Chah Bahar as GOP will not release funds for it’s infra structure in a bid to appease BLA.

Appeasement of Taliban will see a growth of their influence all over in Pakistan including in Karachi. This was the case until MQM took over Karachi and broke down the JI power. The new govt is out to kill of Nazim structure as well as this would enable them to exercise control thru the Deputy Commissioners. Taliban care too much about the size of the beard and destroying female emancipation to worry about economic progress. This is what appears to be in store for the poor Joe public.

I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

 

[maqsad]

Musharaff & Aziz were trying to sell Pakistan's one and only steel mill. Who would want to destroy a country's steel producing capacity entirely if they wanted it to advance? Any sane person would want to increase the sizes, numbers and location of steel mills.

If anyone wants to see the "progress" that the last government tried to make in the area of steel production they should watch this video:

Meray Mutabiq - 24 May 2008 : Pakistan Politics

Watching that video should make any reasonable person wonder if they should give a second thought to the "economic miracle" of the last 8 years.

 

[niaz]

There are two things here:

First the steel mill. I heard the program myself. It is solely based upon the interview of lone ex GM of Steel Mill on a program of a very biased TV anchor. Remember Geo TV suffered most when there was a ban on TV channels. Do you accept that single view as ‘Gods word’ thus absolute truth? The steel mill has been in operation for the last 30 years. How many years have it been profitable? The land is located at Port Qasim, not at Karachi; the value of the land is being estimated by applying Karachi residential land value to an industrial plot!

Why do you assume that it would have shut down after sale? KESC is privatized so is PTCL. Granted performance is not improved but they are no longer subsidized by the govt and tax payer’s money is not being used up. Did Dr Maqsood thought of giving a chance to Omer Ayub, minister for privatization? This is typical spin to the truth. One can say that glass is half empty without giving the other party opportunity to say that it is actually half full. However there was a Supreme Court decision and that is that.

Based upon steel mill case, if anyone wants to deny the entire economic progress during the last 8 years; there can no argument. It is impossible to convince someone who insists that it is night despite being day light.

Kindly just look at the number cars on the road in Pakistan. People must have money to buy these. Or the value of land and houses, how are people affording these if there has been no betterment of the people. How is all the electricity generating capacity being used up (it was surplus in Nawaz era) if the consumption has not gone up.

 

[BATMAN]

Musharaff & Aziz were trying to sell Pakistan's one and only steel mill. Who would want to destroy a country's steel producing capacity entirely if they wanted it to advance? Any sane person would want to increase the sizes, numbers and location of steel mills.

If anyone wants to see the "progress" that the last government tried to make in the area of steel production they should watch this video:

Meray Mutabiq - 24 May 2008 : Pakistan Politics

Watching that video should make any reasonable person wonder if they should give a second thought to the "economic miracle" of the last 8 years.

Dude,
When you have money you are able to do any thing with your money. Yes even new steel mill or invest in other more profitable projects.
The stupid foreigner who will buy steel mill can never take it to his home country.
He can only take home his due profit after tax.
The said stell mill was ages old and today the technology has advanced.
Steel mills consumes large amount of electricity, and chnging low efficiency process and machines with higher will pay back in few years.
I can convince any one at any time that on technical and financial grounds it was a win win situation to sell steel mill.
Please, bring a single aurgument in which tells it was wrong call than I will answer it.
Off course land issue has been briefly, clarified by Mr. Niaz.
Only a stupid man can argue by saying on one hand that it was wrong to sell a productive unit and on the other hand that land cost was more than Defence Housing.
I leave it you to figure out why?

 

[BATMAN]

GOP will not release funds for it’s infra structure in a bid to appease BLA.
I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

The BLA head has been haded out Pakistani passport in UK.

I hope that Zardari is not working for the interests of foriegn powers.

 

[roadrunner]

Musharaff & Aziz were trying to sell Pakistan's one and only steel mill. Who would want to destroy a country's steel producing capacity entirely if they wanted it to advance? Any sane person would want to increase the sizes, numbers and location of steel mills.

If anyone wants to see the "progress" that the last government tried to make in the area of steel production they should watch this video:

Meray Mutabiq - 24 May 2008 : Pakistan Politics

Watching that video should make any reasonable person wonder if they should give a second thought to the "economic miracle" of the last 8 years.

Selling a steel mill to a private investor is a good thing. Point here is, investor wants profits, therefore will run it more efficiently, growth occurs, more jobs, expansion.

Nationalizing it Zardari style is solely for Zardari to get his hands on the profits.

 

[mujahideen]

^^^^Pakistan is going be run like Zardari style, or should I say 10% style.

 

[maqsad]

Dude,
When you have money you are able to do any thing with your money. Yes even new steel mill or invest in other more profitable projects.
The stupid foreigner who will buy steel mill can never take it to his home country.
He can only take home his due profit after tax.
The said stell mill was ages old and today the technology has advanced.
Steel mills consumes large amount of electricity, and chnging low efficiency process and machines with higher will pay back in few years.
I can convince any one at any time that on technical and financial grounds it was a win win situation to sell steel mill.
Please, bring a single aurgument in which tells it was wrong call than I will answer it.
Off course land issue has been briefly, clarified by Mr. Niaz.
Only a stupid man can argue by saying on one hand that it was wrong to sell a productive unit and on the other hand that land cost was more than Defence Housing.
I leave it you to figure out why?

You raise some good points and obviously know a lot more about the specific details of the denationalization of the steel mills than I do. If I researched it deeper myself then I might be able to support my view better but there is next to nothing available about the finer details of this issue that I know of.

My general argument however is that selling that steel mill hands over control of Pakistani steel production to a foreign steel cartel. Most of the steel produced in the world today is by that Mittal group, it's a monopoly. Basically you are taking a calculator, doing some stats and arguing that the figures are in favor of selling it. What a calculator cannot tell you is the non-numerical ways of big business and how it can come back and bite pakistan. The people who buy the mill are doing so for one reason only and that is profit. Those people don't care about pakistan or about increasing local production of steel and neither do they care about giving jobs to pakistanis. These people don't care about the loss of foreign currency every year that pakistan may suffer, WILL suffer after selling the mills. What answer will a calculator give if 2 years down the road the new owners of the mill decide to remove 80% of the production cycle and outsource it to India, Malaysia or China?

It is not a simple calculation to predict the chain reaction in the Pakistani economy if the steel mills are converted to mainly recycling scrap iron because the new owners decide it is more profitable for them. In 5 years the price of scrap iron could triple, iron ore double and finished iron ingots quintuple. Do you think the new owners of the steel mills will then say "oh you know what, this country is already bleeding foreign exchange so lets forget about that $100 million extra in profits each year and shift some extra production to Port Qasim and create 10,000 decent paying jobs at the same time"?

The price of steel is predicted to skyrocket so if anything pakistan should be gearing up to become a net exporter instead of handing everything over for peanuts and just sticking heads in the sand and ignoring reality. An economy cannot industrialize by handing key sectors over to people that just want to suck everything dry and right now steel is underpriced and the true market value has yet to reach equilibrium. It already more than doubled in a decade and the chinese capitalized on that and prospered. Why should pakistan go the opposite way, why commit macroeconomic suicide?

 

[maqsad]

Selling a steel mill to a private investor is a good thing. Point here is, investor wants profits, therefore will run it more efficiently, growth occurs, more jobs, expansion.

Nationalizing it Zardari style is solely for Zardari to get his hands on the profits.

Can you explain what is meant by nationalizing something Zardari style when it is already 100% state owned? If the state runs the mill and the account sheets are public information then anyone can look at them and see where the money is going. What does Zardari have to do with it UNLESS he takes it over by placing some of his cronies in key positions and THEN nationalizing it?

 

[roadrunner]

Can you explain what is meant by nationalizing something Zardari style when it is already 100% state owned? If the state runs the mill and the account sheets are public information then anyone can look at them and see where the money is going. What does Zardari have to do with it UNLESS he takes it over by placing some of his cronies in key positions and THEN nationalizing it?

Look, you're coming out with a bit of stuff that is pretty nonsensical now. You seem to think that anything other than nationalization will cause the destruction of industry. There's plenty of examples all over the world where privatization has greatly expanded industry and made it prosper. Even it's a solution for PIA. Now do you honestly believe that the PPPP or NS did not cook the books when they showed you all the accounts sheets last time?

Anything that is state owned will be eligible for corruption by Zardari. He can cook the books anytime he wants. Pakistan must privatize everything if it wants to eliminate corruption from the country and develop.

 

[maqsad]

Look, you're coming out with a bit of stuff that is pretty nonsensical now. You seem to think that anything other than nationalization will cause the destruction of industry. There's plenty of examples all over the world where privatization has greatly expanded industry and made it prosper. Even it's a solution for PIA. Now do you honestly believe that the PPPP or NS did not cook the books when they showed you all the accounts sheets last time?

Anything that is state owned will be eligible for corruption by Zardari. He can cook the books anytime he wants. Pakistan must privatize everything if it wants to eliminate corruption from the country and develop.

Of course they could have cooked the books but when you talk about corruption let's not look at everything from one side. Musharaff and SA are accused of cooking the books and undervaluing PIA and the steel mills. Now that the govt is in the hands of AZ and NS are you still saying those two and their cronies won't be pocketing a 10% comission by undervaluing PIA and steel mills? Or maybe even all 4 of them since they seem to be in bed with each other, using corruption charges and treason charges to blackmail each other and then hugging and making up?

Where will this blame game end for you?


I seem to see people repeatedly make these arguments:

1) Pakistani politicians are corrupt so the Gop should never touch anything in industry. Except presumably during military rule when everything should be sold off for pennies on the dollar.

2) Large govt owned companies under civilian or military rule are loss makers so they should always be broken up and sold off to private investors quickly and cheaply.

3) Pakistani management is corrupt and incompetent so all industry should be sold off to foreign buyers.

4) Large govt owned companies are always loss makers so they should always be broken up and sold off to private investors.

5) Free mineral and fuel resources located in Pakistan are too complicated for Pakistanis themselves and especially the govt to extract so that should be outsourced to more experienced operaters who will take most of the profits out of the country but that is good because they also do a better job.

Well then what exactly is the benefit of independence, what was the point of 1947? Why not solve the problems of corruption and incompetence by creating mechanisms that fix all these problems instead of handing everything over to profiteers who supposedly will run things better?

 

[Mohammed Azizuddin]

Pakistan needs 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations

KARACHI: A World Bank body has said that Pakistan need 159 years to catch up with the industrialised nations of the world, and that the country could reach this milestone by 2050 if it maintained an annual growth rate of 8.3 per cent, and in 2100 if it maintained a growth rate of 4.9 per cent.

It said during the last 10 years Pakistan has maintained the maximum growth rate of 4.8 with an average of 1.8 per year, and that its per capita GDP in 2006 was 2206 dollars.

According to it, India with a per capita GDP of 3308 dollars can catch up with industrialised nations in 50 years. During the last 10 years, India had the maximum growth rate of 7.7 per cent, with an average of 4.9 per cent, the Dawn quoted the report as saying.

The report, prepared by the Commission on Growth and Development noted that China, which in 2006 had per capita GDP of 6621 dollars, can catch up with industrialised countries in 23 years.

The Commission is based at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.

During the last 10 years, China has had an average growth rate of 8.3 per cent, with a maximum of 10.1 per cent.

The report further said that among the Muslim nations, Malaysia was the closest to catch up with industrialised nations, as it can reach this milestone in 35 years, followed by Iran, which can reach there in 54 years. Egypt needed 118 years, it added.

Pakistan needs 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations

Wow China can catch up in 23 years......India can catch up in 50 years..that sounds fair considering that India opened markets to the world 20 years after China did, it was always assumed that India is 20 years behind china....
But, what shocks me is that when India and Pakistan started at the same time 60 years ago Pakistan needs 150 years to catch up!!
Having started at the same time India is 100 years ahead of Pakistan???

 

[Bushroda]

Aziz, stop disturbing the bee-hive. This is a discussion regarding Pakistan's industrial production & not India's.

 

[never]

the report is wrong as it states the max growth rate over last 10 yrs was 4.8% with an av of 1.8%.
the economy has more than doubled in the last 10yrs with a minimum growth of about 6%. im shoked that no one can actually read and the inians are wetting them selves. the standard of education is appaling low in the west to such a degree that even the world bank has to relly on morons. ishaq dar should find a job there. what it does show in reality is a very heavy bias in such organisations which is bad.
on a lighter note just to show you gays that pakistani politics is not unique i would like to share the story of thailand where the new prime minister has been told to concentrate on just politics as he is bringing the office of pm in to disrepute as he has not resigned from his previous job as a television chef. the army chief has not ruled out a coup.