Call for sustainable population growth rate

Islamabad : Member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on IT and Communications Zohair Khaliq linked the economic turnaround to higher tax-GDP rate, sustainable population growth rate, resolution of the energy crisis, and the maximum use of technology.

“The government should focus on four things. We have to all start paying taxes, the tax to GDP ratio is shocking. Our population growth rate is unsustainable. We are desperately short of energy and will be in the future – the immediate answer is solar energy. Finally, everything we do should be underpinned by technology,” Zohair Khaliq said during a discussion on ‘The Dynamic Global Economy, Fostering the Pakistan Advantage’ at the Serena Hotels.

The event, which was organised by the Serena Hotels under its public diplomacy initiative, Raabta, had Zohair Khaliq, Manager Operations at World Bank Pakistan Melinda Good, president and CEO of GE Pakistan Sarim Sheikh and international development and public policy professional Hasaan Khawar as panellists.

Melinda Good said her organisation had been looking at two trajectories for Pakistan between now and its hundredth birthday, which was 29 years from now.

“One trajectory is the business as usual which has the country growing at about 5% as it has done historically and the population growing at 2.4%, a rate which is the highest in the region. That means more people are dividing the pie. The other trajectory is the optimistic one, where on its hundredth birthday, growth has accelerated, the difficult reforms have been done, and you’ve been able to invest in health and education, more women have joined the workforce and these will moderate the population and Pakistan is in the upper middle-income status,” she said.

The World Bank Pakistan manager called for competitiveness and improvement in the investment climate, increase in the fiscal space, inclusiveness and human capital investment.

Sarim Sheikh said the global demand versus Pakistan’s own current account and fiscal deficit were in a bad state and the country could end up in a stagflationary environment.

He said many jobs would disappear due to automation, digitisation and artificial intelligence and therefore, the government would have to address those things.

Hasaan Khawar said the region’s three countries had one-third of the world’s population on the whole creating an opportunity for development.

“The problem is that you can take flight from Islamabad in any direction for three hours and everything would change – the air quality, the perception of safety, the expectations of service delivery and that is what matters,” he said.

CEO of the Serena Hotels Aziz Boolani said the Raabta was the culmination of the value that his organisation brought to the society.

“The convening power of Serena allows us to bring together experts, policymakers and the interested citizenry to inform and engage individuals and organizations in advancing debate, create knowledge and develop a wider appreciation of the complexity of socio-economic subjects,” he said.

He said 2018 started as an all-time cyclical high for not only in the developed countries but in the developing ones as well and the good times economically are when economies must plan for the cyclical lows.