ISLAMABAD, April 25: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday said that he expects more than seven per cent economic growth rate during the current fiscal year and sought support of development partners to sustain higher growth rates and poverty reduction.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the Pakistan Development Forum 2007, the prime minister said that Pakistan’s strength was in its 100 million people of age less than 25 years who would be imparted with technical and vocational training at the rate of one million per annum.

The World Bank’s vice-president for South Asia Praful Patel appreciated Pakistan’s achievement on the macroeconomic side by repeatedly saying that Pakistan was making progress but warned that extreme inequality could lead to polarisation and migrations. He emphasised that the biggest challenge for Pakistan was to eliminate poor living standards of less than $1 per day by 2015.

He said he himself saw how the poor Pakistanis live. “There are Pakistanis living on less than $1 per day. These are the individuals who want to know how they would benefit from a well managed current account deficit or investment in ports and dams.”

The theme of this year’s PDF is “The demographic dividend: unleashing the human potential”. PDF is an annual event that takes place before preparation of next year’s budget and development needs are placed before various lenders for financing by the government.

Mr Aziz said that the per capita income in Pakistan was expected to increase from $847 last year to $950 this year and cross the $1000 next year. He said foreign direct investment this year would cross $6 billion mark as it had already reached $5.6 billion in first nine months of the current year.

He said a Livestock Census 2006, had been completed which showed that the number of cattle registered an annual increase of 4.5 per cent. Major initiatives to boost meat and milk production are under way, which will open avenues of additional income for the rural population, he said.

The prime minister said that out of $5.6 billion committed by lenders for earthquake rehabilitation, an amount of $2.9 billion had been disbursed. Out of 600,000 houses affected, work on 250,000 is in progress. 1500 educational and 150 health facilities will be completed during the current financial year.

Mr Aziz said sustaining growth and ensuring that its benefits reach all segments of society remains a major challenge for Pakistan.

Mr Patel said the cost of doing business in Pakistan was coming down but “lack of world class infrastructure in some sectors remains a concern”.