Private sector facilitation: government's role to be restricted to frame policy guidelines: Hafeez

Federal Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh has said that government's role will be restricted to frame policy guidelines for the facilitation of private sector. While addressing a seminar on "Sustained Long Run Growth," Hafeez Sheikh said "Pakistani establishment and policymakers have developed consensus on how to chalk out sustained growth-oriented policies yielding optimal results."
"You cannot make progress unless you have people with capacity and skill," he said adding that government should be clear who will regulate for setting tariff and who will own manufacturing units and finance them. He regretted that many wrong decisions were made in the past. "We have learned lesson from the past experiences. He said that there had also been problem in banks in which government injected money. "But these banks had written off loans," he maintained.
Meanwhile, according to a statement issued here, one of the UK Government's Chief Economists and world leading specialist, Professor Alan Winters stressed the inextricable link between economic growth and poverty reduction. Professor Winters is in Pakistan on the invitation of Dr Nadeem Ul Haque, Minister/Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, as part of the development of a new Growth Strategy for Pakistan, which will help the country improve competitiveness, promote investment based on innovation and entrepreneurship, and better exploit the potential of Pakistan's large domestic market.
Economic growth needs to be more than double to eight percent to create enough jobs for Pakistan's working population. Professor Alan Winters, the UK's Department for International Development's Chief Economist, said: "Economic growth and poverty reduction go hand-in-hand; getting more people in to jobs gets them out of poverty and creates more consumers, driving more production and demand for services. And more people in work helps increase tax returns, allowing the government to improve everyone's living standards by investing in schools, hospitals and other infrastructure.
"Governments can't achieve growth by itself, but have a pivotal role in helping the private sector expand and diversify, through setting appropriate and fair policy; implementing effective regulation; and allowing firms the flexibility to innovate - all critical for a vibrant, stable, and competitive economy.
"However, here in Pakistan half the adult population cannot read and write, under-employment is high in many areas, and the population will increase by half again in next twenty years. This means there is a vast mine of latent and productivity, which needs to be developed and tapped, even as the country wrestles with painful but essential reforms to cut waste and increase tax returns, if Pakistan is to become the prosperous and dynamic country it has the potential to be."
Dr Nadeem Ul Haque, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission/Minister of state, said: "Planning Commission has embarked on the difficult challenge of formulating a new Economic Growth Framework which can put Pakistan on a high growth path, sustained development and improvement in the poverty and inequality levels. The strategy is trying to explore important areas such as private and public sector productivity, strengthening governance and market reforms, improving urban management, and engaging youth and community to make the growth strategy sustainable and inclusive."
Dr Winters presented evidence and drew examples from around the globe, including India, Colombia, Uganda, and Chile. He is one of the world's leading specialists on the empirical and policy analysis of international trade, on which he has published over two hundred articles and thirty books.
Professor Winters is planning on visiting Pakistan regularly over the coming years to support the development of the Government of Pakistan's Growth Strategy. The UK Government is committed to supporting Pakistan become a prosperous and stable country, through funding programmes to help get more children in to school, and to help poor people in Pakistan (particularly women and the marginalised) lift themselves out of poverty by improving access to job training, financial services and markets.