‘$85bn debt small against trillion dollar Pak economy’

LAHORE : A private research university Rector, Dr Shahid Chaudhry, has said in purchasing power parity, the size of debt is 85 billion dollars which is small compared to the size of Pakistan’s trillion dollar economy.

Speaking at an inaugural session of the 5th International Conference on Applied Development Economics (ADE) jointly organised by the Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) and the Innovation and Technology Centre (ITC) at Lahore School of Economics, he talked about the peculiarity of Pakistan’s current situation in terms of losing macro-economic sovereignty in order to induce rollover of external debt. Dr Chaudhry also thanked the international community gathered in the conference for helping the Lahore School of Economics push forward its vision of sustainable and equitable solutions to common challenges facing the world.

The conference is spread over three days from 23 – 25 August 2023 and includes presentations from international and local researchers working on issues related to economic development and sustainable growth in the developing world. It broadly focuses on the following thematic areas: Labour Markets, Industry and Trade, Political Economy and Institutions, Education and Health, and Climate Change with a crosscutting emphasis on gender. The aim of the conference is to highlight recent research that can have lasting policy impact for sustainable growth in the developing world; provide early career researchers the opportunity to obtain feedback on their ongoing work; and to start a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and discussions among researchers on potential collaborations. In his plenary address by Dr David K Evans on getting the best teachers and helping teachers be their best stated that teachers’ salary makes up 80 percent of public sector budgets in education and human capital development and improvement in the quality of teachers has more impact on students’ learning outcomes compared to school-based management, computer assisted learning and community-based monitoring interventions. It is possible to improve the quality of these teachers through better preparation, he added. In the session of trade policy and skills, Anri Sakakibara discussed how the disproportionate expansion of the female intensive wearing apparel sector can trigger the structural transformation of the female labour force in a way which promotes gender equality.