June 07, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 6: Steering clear of the harsh ground realities and grey areas, Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06 does not provide any figures about the country’s population and literacy rate and also has no mention of the decrease in public savings and the recent stock market crash, which sent the small investors reeling.

Knowing the exact number of population and their age groups has always served as the basis for policy and budget-making, future planning, and understanding of the economic growth of a country. It is also necessary for determining the per capita income of a nation, which is derived by dividing the wealth a nation creates in one year by its total population.

The money which goes to each head is considered the per capita income, though it is another question whether the distribution of wealth is equitable or not.

The Economic Survey claims that per capita income has increased to $847 in fiscal 2005-06 compared to $742 in 2004-05, registering an increase of 14.1 per cent. But the survey has not mentioned the country’s population figures. This creates many doubts. The size of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the wealth a country creates through labour and services during one year — was Rs8.89 trillion ($148billion) in the last fiscal. Now, the question arises which population figures the government used while determining the per capita income?

Has the government divided GDP by the number of population as determined by the census of 1998 that is 132.352 million?

In Pakistan, the number of population has always been shrouded in mystery. A number of government officials and even some ministers have reportedly claimed recently that the country’s population stands at 160 million. But the government’s Population Census Organisation estimates it at 157.263 million as on June 6, 2006.

Officials had been hesitant in the past in revealing the actual figures as the bulky funds Pakistan received from international donors to arrest population growth through family planning had failed to deliver. The government is still reluctant to reveal facts because the matter also involves allocation to provinces from the federal divisible pool on population basis.

The survey says Pakistan is encountering the problem of over-population. During the past 25 years, cultivable land has increased by 27 per cent, set against 98 per cent increase in population. However, the survey does not hint towards the food security issue which has gripped Pakistan despite it being an agricultural country.

The survey says urban population would double in the next 20 years that would result in the cutting of more and more forests to create space for human beings. The survey has not mentioned that how much of the country’s population is living in the urban and rural areas. Only 60 per cent of the population has access to sewerage facilities, the survey says but remains silent when it comes to their location.

STOCK EXCHANGE: Stock markets and their functioning have always been a sacred cow for the government. The survey is tight- lipped over the recent stock market crash as the stocks fell by nearly 20 per cent between April 17 and May 31, posting a loss of over Rs600 billion in market capitalisation. This was almost the action replay of what happened in March 2005, when the market crashed like a house of cards stripping off the small investors of their hard-earned money and filling up the pockets of a limited number of brokers.

The survey says the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) share index and aggregated market capitalisation (AMC) recorded an increase of 41.1 and 48.3 per cent, respectively, during the last fiscal. But, then, there is no mention as to what happened from the mid of April till the end of May.

It is silent about the weaker public confidence in investing in the stock markets.

DECREASE IN NATIONAL SAVINGS: The survey shows that national savings stood at 16.4 per cent of the GDP in the last fiscal, “fractionally lower than last year’s level of 16.5 per cent”. Domestic savings stood at 14.4 per cent of the GDP in 2005-06, lower than 14.5 per cent of GDP in 2004-05.

The survey, however, does not cite the reasons for decrease in national and domestic savings. Normally, when savings of a nation fall, it is due to a couple of main reasons: low return on deposits by banking sector and an increase in the cost of living caused by surging prices of items of daily use. In Pakistan, these two main factors are behind the drop in the national and domestic savings.