SUNDAY TIMES ISLAMABAD : Minister for Planning and Development, Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar says quantum of consumption in Pakistan is at ninety three percent of GDP, the highest among the emerging economies.
He was addressing the inaugural session of a three-day 34th Annual General Meeting and Conference of Pakistan Society of Development Economists that began in Islamabad.
The Planning Minister said saving rate in Pakistan is less than half of other countries of the region. He said the growth strategy should focus on building the economic fundamentals, such as quality and inclusiveness of economic growth, human capital and sustainable agriculture.
The Minister said SME sector has been identified as one of the key sector of economic growth. He said the CPEC is an opportunity for Pakistan and China for growth and prosperity. Khusro Bakhtyar said the two countries are in effective collaborative arrangement that is beneficial for both countries.
The agriculture framework under CPEC focuses on joint ventures, value addition, cold chain management for fruits and vegetables, marketing and branding will help the country to overcome socioeconomic weaknesses. He said we need to increase saving while the balance between direct and indirect taxes is skewed toward indirect taxes.
The Minister said in the period of previous government the price of fuel went down making it easy to handle current account balance.
The present government is trying to restructure the policies. He said the service sector now contributes to 56 per cent of domestic GDP but its share in exports is only 5 to 6 billion dollars, while our imports from China have reached 18 billion dollars.
He said the country needs to promote value addition and adapt import substitution policies and the government is devising policy packages for this purposes.