KARACHI, Jan 3: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz declared in a confident tone on Monday that the year 2005 would be a high growth year and "it is going to be one of the most exciting years of Pakistan's history".

"It is all set to show an all-round improvement in agriculture, manufacturing, export, stock market and corporate profitability," the prime minister said while speaking at the 20th annual dinner meeting of the American Business Council (ABC) at the Governor House.

"If any business is not showing a minimum of 20 per cent growth, I will say you are not in the right business," he remarked jokingly while pointing out that demand had picked up immensely showing buoyancy in the national economy.

Nonetheless, he said, there were challenges ahead and the biggest challenge was to take the benefits of all this growth down to the people at the lowest level. "We are aiming to increase per capita income to 1,500 dollars by the year 2015 as against $600 plus now," he declared, but quickly pointed out that there would be people earning more than $1,500 and also those who would be earning less than that.

Giving a brief review of the current economic scenario, Mr Aziz said that a 4 per cent growth in agriculture was expected this year. "We are reaping the richest cotton crop of more than 14 million bales in the current season," he said, adding that the textile industry was all set to benefit from the rich cotton crop and enter a quota-free market with much advantage.

He hoped farmers would harvest a good wheat crop next spring because of increase in the official procurement price and timely rains. Manufacturing, he said, had shown a double-digit growth in the last fiscal and was poised to show a similar growth pace in the current fiscal year.

One of the indications of the manufacturing growth is the mounting demand for bank credits which had touched the figure of Rs190 billion. Last year, private sector got Rs132 billion during the same period.

Exports too, he said, were showing a double-digit growth while imports were also rising mainly because of demand for raw material and capital goods. The fiscal position was sound as revenue collection was higher this year and exceeded the target.

As for direct foreign investments, he said, it showed 51 per cent improvement, but at $328 million was much below the actual potential of Pakistan. "We have a big privatization agenda," he told the executives of American and other foreign companies and pointed out that Pakistan Steel, Pakistan State Oil and other prime state enterprises were on the list of dis-investment.

He emphasized that the government had been pursuing a consistent policy for the past five years and intended to do so in the future, in a transparent manner and offering a level-playing field to both local and foreign investors.

At the same time, he said, the government was taking up gigantic infrastructure projects and mentioned Gwadar, the Coastal Highway and a number of other projects which would create a much better business environment.

He said the government had tackled effectively the issue of Intellectual Property Rights, but felt that a lot more needed to be done in this area. The prime minister also said that Karachi was now a much safer place for business than what it used to be.

Earlier, the president of the ABC, Mr Nadeem Karamat, expressed the hope that the government would maintain consistency in its economic policies which was vital from investors' perspective. He also stressed the need for allowing the market mechanism to work on prices, rather than having price controls and government intervention.