ISLAMABAD, April 19 : Pakistan has always took the short term measures to respond to economic crisis, always depended assistance from abroad instead of devising long term strategy, former Finance Minister Shahid Javed Burki stated.

Speaking on present state of economy, he said that this is the most difficult time for Pakistan, as GDP growth is very low - half of Bangladesh and a third of India’s.

Fiscal situation is bad. Financial bleeding caused by the state owned enterprises is making fiscal situation further difficult.

He said that GDP growth should be double compared to the population growth and suggested that Pakistan needs 6% GDP growth to reduce poverty.

“Crises of governance and corruption had been rising in the country and for revival of economic growth it’s essential to restore confidence in the economy,” he said speaking at a seminar titled, “Pakistan; Moving the Economy Forward”, organised by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics here Thursday.

To steer the economy out of current state he said that Pakistan should focus on regional integration, and increase trading with neighbouring countries like India and China which could add up to 2-4 per cent in growth rate, whereas Pakistan’s destination for exports is United States, which needs a lot of expenditure on transit.

He suggested that to build the confidence in economy the next government should have some strategic framework for sustainable economic growth.

“Currently Pakistan economy is facing trust deficit as no one is ready to invest here,” he said and added the other important step to achieve sustainable economic growth could be that Pakistan should give more space to private sector to work.

Talking about the long-term initiatives, he said, Pakistan should adopt different types of strategic visions for new development paradigm.

He also suggested few medium term steps should be focused on agriculture productivity as in this country it is very low despite having large aggregated area. “If we train human resource and provide them market, it will prove to be an asset,” he said.— A Reporter