March 12, 2006	Sunday	Safar 11, 1427

ISLAMABAD, March 11: The government faces serious financial and technical constraints to achieve its long-term economic objectives, including increasing the current $104 billion GDP to $700 billion by 2030.

A draft of “Approach Paper on Strategic Directions to Achieve Vision 2030”, a copy of which was obtained by Dawn, stresses that the current low tax-to-GDP ratio will have to be improved substantially to overcome the constraints for improving financial, scientific, technical and human resources to increase the present per capita income of $780 to $3,000 in the next 25 years.

The approach paper enlists five major challenges which need to be addressed to achieve Vision 2030 goals: better education, easy access to justice, affordable and good health care, improved governance and management of the institutions.

The paper, prepared by the Planning Commission, recognizes risks and limitations in attempting to define the way of life in 2030 and appreciates nature, diversity and enormity of the challenges. “The process requires consistent inputs from all stakeholders, including various tiers of the government, civil society as well as a broad range of experts.”

Talking about institutions of the state and government, the paper says that as the scale of economic activity expands, better institutions will become absolutely necessary. “It is now well-recognized that governments are inefficient and opaque not because they do not know any better or it is expensive to achieve this, but because vested interest or creators and power centres want them to be so.”

“At the national level, a critical consensus has developed that no reforms or restructuring can be successful, and no vision will be achieved, unless a major change is brought about in the competence and quality of public servants. Extensive administrative reforms, improved service structures and opportunities for growth, which attract and retain good persons, and establishing better interaction across tiers of the government and as well as its various organs will, therefore, be an essential part of the vision exercise,” it adds.

In this regard, the paper says that the most difficult exercise in vision planning and forecasting will be to propose practical measures needed to improve, stabilize and even reinvent the institutions of civil service, legislature, judiciary and security.

The revival of private sector investment is major element of the Vision 2030 in an environment of deregulation, liberalization and privatization. Notwithstanding, a host of tax concessions and incentives provided to the private sector, it remains shy and fails to make investment in the domestic economy of the right quality and quantity. On the other hand, the private sector is inhibited in its investment initiatives by diverse factors such as high prices of utilities, a plethora of administrative barriers to investment such as corruption, red tape and higher costs of inputs.

The paper opposes the privatization of state assets and says: “The Privatization of strategic assets in energy, especially in the context of looming energy shortages in the world market and different countries trying to control the world supplies, may have to be re-examined. Separation of ownership from responsible corporate management practices must be reinforced.”

It also believes that a major increase in public expenditure will be required to enhance the scale and quality of education in general and the scale and quality of scientific/technical education in Pakistan in particular. The present public expenditure of 2.6 per cent of GDP is still lower than the minimum four per cent recommended by the Unesco.