May 05, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 4: The Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) will meet on May 21-22 to firm up next year’s annual plan and public sector development programme (PSDP), with major focus on construction of big dams, infrastructure and social sector improvement and programmes for public appeal in an election year.

Led by deputy chairman planning commission, the APCC is the first inter-provincial forum that formally sets the direction for the next year’s economic policies and development agenda. It is later approved by the National Economic Council (NEC) before the announcement of the annual budgets.

This is for the first time that APCC's proceedings would be completed in two days instead of the traditional single marathon session that normally concludes after mid-night.

On day one, the APCC will review the annual plan for the current year and based on that make economic projects for financial year 2007-08. This will be followed by two sessions on sector-wise review of current year's development allocations and proposed PSDP for 2007-08, which would be completed the next day.

Officials told this correspondent that next year’s overall PSDP is likely to exceed Rs470 billion, against Rs385 billion of the current year. This did not include Rs50 billion earmarked for the reconstruction of earthquake-hit areas. Next year, too, there would be substantial allocations for earthquake effort.

They, however, said that the next year’s PSDP could even touch Rs500 billion given the fact that the size of the economy was expected close to Rs10 trillion or above and also because the government would like to announce development schemes to ensure maximum votes.

The planning commission was trying its best to secure at least 4.7 per cent of GDP given the fact that major allocations would be made to launch mega dams and hydropower projects. The allocations for the next year are likely to be 22 per cent higher than the current year.

They said that the planning commission had asked the ministry of finance to immediately submit recommendations of the priorities’ committee to ascertain the provinces’ demands and various ministries and to indicate resource availability.

These sources said the government was expecting a higher-than-targeted growth rate of seven per cent this year, thanks to better crop output, improvement in livestock situation and services sector that would also make up for the expected slower growth in industrial sector.

For the next year, the government is likely to fix a GDP growth rate target at 7.2 per cent, supported by about 4.4 per cent increase in agriculture and more than 11 per cent growth in manufacturing.

Struggling to achieve this year’s inflation target of 6.5 per cent, the government would be looking at containing inflation measured by consumer price index at around 5.5 per cent and then maintain it in the five per cent region over the next three years. Similarly, the government would like to raise investment to GDP ratio to over 21 per cent next year.

Water and energy security, investment in social sector and human skill development, improvement in export earnings and infrastructure development would remain directions for next year’s development plan.