Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan desperately needed measures to bring the economy out of crisis through sustainable export-led economic growth. 

"Sustainable economic growth is possible only through increased productivity that leads to more exports and higher economic growth," he said while addressing an international conference on productivity accreditation and certification.

Ahsan Iqbal said the country had been facing sheer foreign exchange reserves and a balance of payments crisis for a long time due to slow growth in exports. "Whenever we cross 6% of GDP growth, the government faces dollar shortage issue due to which we have to put the emergency brake on the economic growth to resolve the balance of payments crisis," he added.

In 2018, he recalled the government launched a productivity initiative with the help of the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) aimed at increasing productivity in the country by ensuring quality and innovation. However, he said the government was changed soon and the initiative could not continue due to the change in the government.

Ahsan Iqbal maintained that the sustainable economic development of the country was directly linked to political stability and continuity in the policies. He said that Pakistan could earn an additional $10 billion to $12 billion per year only by increasing the per acre yield of various crops by 80% to 300%. This increase was quite possible by adopting international standards of growing crops, he added.

Meanwhile, participating as the chief guest in another event titled "Dialogue on Global Development Initiative Towards Global Security," Ahsan Iqbal said that the whole world was going through an economic crisis as it had not yet recovered from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The minister said the commodity prices rose worldwide due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and subsequently gripped the world with a high inflation trend. The balance of payments and economic crisis today had assumed a global phenomenon leading to slowing down the execution of Sustainable Development Goals worldwide, he added.

The minister asserted that today, the country’s poor people were paying the price of climate change. The recent flood disaster had affected 33 million people, he said, adding that children and mothers in the relief camps were reeling and undernourished. "We have to feed an entire generation and the task of bringing people back has posed serious challenges for the government," he added.

The minister said that in 2013, the world saw Pakistan as a security risk while myths were doing the rounds to defame it. Nevertheless, the government stabilized the economy and made the country investment friendly, he added.

Commenting on the Global Initiative Dialogue, the minister said that the dialogue offered ample opportunities to understand the dynamics of global security. A country where political instability and discontinuity of policies prevailed could not tread the path of progress and prosperity, he added.

The two-day conference was organized by the National Productivity Organization (NPO) on the occasion of APO’s diamond jubilee.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk