12 July 2004 Monday 23 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425 Redistribution of income - a nightmare The function of redistribution of income is assigned to central or federal governments, and not to provincial or local governments, for several reasons. ... Who cares for the small farmer Poverty alleviation is a hot current subject attracting attention at all levels - national and international. There is no dearth of official pronouncements in this regard. ... A technocrat as prime minister How would finance minister Shaukat Aziz, a technocrat with a track record but with no formal schooling in politics, shape as the next prime minister? ... Blending growth with poverty alleviation The official pursuit of high economic growth has become a contentious issue in Pakistan now as it does not seem to benefit the very poor directly or reduce abject poverty immediately. ... Implications of rebasing the National Accounts The United Nations has developed the System of National Accounts (SNA/1993) for standardizing the national income accounting across the globe. ... ADB: meaningful contribution missing The multilateral Asian Development Bank (ADB) has offered several attractive packages for different development sectors. ... Monetary policy needs modification The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) continued with the current easy money policy to spur economic growth by providing cheaper credit to the private sector and at the same time to police inflation. ... How to control prices The price control has always remained a complex phenomenon both in developed and developing economies. Supporters of free economies argue that market mechanism determines the price level on the basis of demand and supply. ... Small insurance cos need concessions We are so much impressed with the slogan, "small is beautiful" that grandiose schemes have been floated extolling virtues of small and medium enterprises (SMES) and special banks (SMEDA) have been set up to promote small enterprises. ... Restructuring: changes in public sector The influx of new technologies and the fast approaching globalization have placed stagnant and debt-ridden economies of the South at the crossroad where they have to decide either to keep status quo ... Will the NCE ensure fair prices? The National Commodity Exchange (NCE), Pakistan's maiden online commodity futures market, is set to start functioning by the end of this month after successfully completing trial runs. ... Translating growth into development According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, the economy grew at 6.4 per cent during the year 2003-04. This is a healthy growth rate and among the highest in the region. ... Mishandling in the wheat sector At last the government, which has been claiming of having sufficient wheat stocks for the current year (2004-05), despite reservation of independent analysts, has decided to import one million tonnes of the commodity to meet the estimated requirement of the country during the year. ... Water resource potential of Pakistan Pakistan has entered into the 21st century with a challenge to meet food and fibre requirements for its population and to achieve the export targets, water in Pakistan is becoming scarce, while major parts of conventional resources have already been developed. ... Benefits of zero tillage technology The rice-wheat belt is home to 600 million people and more than 240 million residing here consume these products yielded from the cropping system. ... Banks emerge as most sought after on KSE Heavy buying in bank shares highlighted trading on the stock market during last week. Predictions of higher interim dividend did not allow investors to sit on the sidelines. ... Rupee comes under fire The State Bank of Pakistan's decision not to drain the liquidity is putting pressure on the Pakistani rupee. The rupee's fall started from the beginning of last session of 2003-04 financial year ... Foreign exchange reserves scale up The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has left its discount rate unchanged at 7.5 per cent since November 2002. The dependence of the banks on the central bank as the lender of last resort has gradually reduced. ...

© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004