According to media reports, the World Economic Forum has put Pakistan ahead of India in terms of emerging economies of the world. This is the economic performance of a country which is marred by corruption, mismanagement and in most of the cases administrative failure. If you bring logic and reasons to your side, there is no way Pakistan should have better performance than the countries in the region. But in fact, Pakistani economy is resilient and independent, which wades not only through a sea of corruption, but also hostile government policies. The government had recently imposed regulatory duty on 700 items, including the raw material which increased the cost of production and made exportable items uncompetitive in the world markets. The Supreme Court has now reversed the government decision. Had the duty still been there, even then the economy would have survived. The World Economic Forum ranked India at 62nd in the list of emerging economies while Pakistan has been ranked at 26th and China at 47th. According to the Inclusive Development Index, Norway continued to be the Number 1 inclusively advanced economy of the world and Lithuania as the Number 1 of all emerging economies of the world.
The index adopted various parameters to assess the ranking, which also included standard of living of the people, debt burden as well as the sustainability of the business environment. In a recently held annual meeting of the forum, the member countries were encouraged to shift their focus to inclusive development and growth models. The term gross domestic product has also become relatively ambiguous as it is measured on the basis of total income of a country without keeping into account the inequalities within the people. There are the people who are well-to-do and others who eke out a meager existence. Last year, Pakistan ranked 52, India 60 amongst the 79 emerging economies while China remained at 15. Keeping in view the current economic trends, it is hoped the country will improve its performance in the coming years. However, there is a need to launch programmes for capacity building of the policymakers who still could not come out of the past and have limited approach to take operational decisions. Keeping in view the emerging trends in the international markets, there is a need to change outlook of the economy and look toward future. When all the countries in the region are adopting new economic methods, there should be no reason the Pakistani policymakers watch the developments as silent spectators and refuse to do anything on their part
