Pessimism with Growth, Why?

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Dear Abdus Samad, you`ve made some good analysis but there is no central theme you present- you`re all over the place. Often I`ve seen fauji-lovers (and I don`t mean you as I do`nt think you are one) say they believe in institution building but then recall the times of the first few years of the Ayub which they claim were the best ever. If one really believes in institution building, there is absolutely no scope for praising any dictatorship regardless of how competent the so called economic statistics are. Good economic policies DEMAND a stable state structure. It`s a MUST. ONLY INSTITUTIONS can provide that. Faujiz screw up all institutions.

Well said Malik99!

When the masters no longer care for the puppet faujiz of Pakistan, those marvelling the current macro-economic `success` stories will be nowhere to be found.

I am no hot-shot economist- but these fauji lovers bring shame to the entire economics education with their blantant ignorance when touting economic `success` stories.

I agree with Malik 99 that this fear of a link between foreign and economic policy may be another reason for pessimsm regarding the future. As the foreign policy scenario changes, it could have economic repurcussions.

All the more reason for accelerating reform! And the upshot of the article is to deepen reform!

Abdus Samad Sahib - Excuse me for being a party-pooper but I am not sure if your admiration for the economic ``accomplishments`` of this regime is well placed. Remember, Pakistani ecomony had all the right indicators of improvement in Zia`s time too. But here is the rub: as long as the success of our economic policy is tied to our foreign policy, there is nothing to celebrate. To guage how dependent our economic policy is on the enslavement of our foreign policy, consider this:

- By getting reduced tarriffs due to our cooperation with West on ``war on terror`` we are able to temporarily jack-up our exports.

- IMF and Worldbank, as a reward for our killing our own civilians in the name of fighting terror, has eased the terms and conditions of loans.

- a part of our foreign exchange debt has been written off due to our crowd pleasing activties.

So here is my point: when this ``terror party`` is over in five to ten years and West`s attention shifts from fighting terror to fighting something else, do we have the kind of basic industries and the infrastructure in place to sustain our economic growth? Becuase we know from our past experiences that once this ``terror war`` is over, we would we surely be thrown away like a used condom as we were when the 1980s Afghan lovemaking came to an end.