ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: Dr Ishrat Hussain, the governor, State Bank of Pakistan, on Tuesday defended the drastic reduction in the rates of return on National Saving Schemes in view of the decline in inflation rate.

Answering questions at a forum of regulatory authorities held as a part of the on-going 18th annual meeting of Pakistan Society of Development Economists, he said when the NSS rate was, say, 14pc, the real return was 4pc after deducting the inflation rate. Now that it has been reduced to 10pc in a situation of lower inflation rate, the real rate of return was around 7 per cent.

The session was chaired by Prof. Srinivasan of Yale University, USA, and attended by the chiefs/representatives of five regulatory authorities, namely, SBP, Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority, Electronic Media Regulatory Authority and Telecommunication Authority. The National Electric Power Authority did not respond to invitation, while the Monopoly Control Authority (MCA) was not even invited. Incidentally, both these bodies are without Chairmen.

Javed Ahmed, chairman, Pemra, while describing the functions of his organization, said that Pakistan ranked 138th among 174 countries in terms of access to media. In terms of per capita TV sets, Pakistan was behind Vietnam and Yemen.

Haroon Sharif, Executive Director of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, recounted its activities. Although a lot of ground had been covered in terms of corporate governance, he said capital formation was still lacking.

A significant highlight of the day was the M.L. Qureshi Memorial Lecture in memory of the first Director of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and one of the authors of the First Five-Year Plan. Dr Sarfraz Qureshi, former Director of PIDE, recalled the late economist’s contributions to the creation of various institutions in the planning and economic fields.

The meeting will conclude tomorrow.