04 November 2004	Thursday	20 Ramazan 1425

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

KARACHI, Nov 3: The World Bank has observed a 0.5 per cent decline at an average rate every year in the per capita income in Sindh since 1999 when the per capita income in other parts of the country showed an average annual growth of 1.3 per cent.

In a Concept Note prepared in October, the World Bank has given a bird's eye view of the prevailing economic situation in Sindh with particular reference to growing poverty, lawlessness and breakdown of the infrastructure. The bank has announced undertaking a study of the Sindh economy "to suggest policies and institutional reforms that can accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty".

This report, the World Bank declares in its Concept Note, would be given to the government in 2005 "in time for the next provincial budget". Its main theme would be to "create an enabling environment for strong, sustained and shared growth for Sindh."

The Concept Note of a World Bank team is a follow-up of the request made by the Sindh government in July this year. The World Bank team visited Karachi and Islamabad in August 2004 to hold exploratory discussions with federal and provincial governments.

Following a series of meetings, the World Bank mission was convinced that (i) Sindh is getting left behind other provinces in growth and development (ii) Karachi's problems are getting acute (iii) the renewed country-wide focus on economic growth is yet to be pursued with similar vigour at the provincial level and (iv) the Sindh government, particularly the finance minister is keen to re-engage the World Bank.

"Sindh has gradually lost its leadership position to the more reforming provinces," the World Bank notes while pointing out that the rut was set in the mid-1990s. "Since then, the Sindh economy has grown slower than the national economy, the intra-provincial disparities have intensified and province's finances have been under severe stress," it states.

The note recalls that Sindh has historically been one of the more prosperous and developed provinces in Pakistan and points out that until the mid-1990s "the province had a higher per capita income and better educational and health indicators than the rest of the country."