ISLAMABAD, Feb 8: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday said that competitiveness was the cornerstone of economic growth and development and all arms of the government and the private sector will have to be involved to improve Pakistan's ranking in the global competitiveness index.

He was chairing a meeting here to review the state of Pakistan's competitiveness and to decide the steps required to be taken to improve it.

“Globalisation is a reality that countries can no longer escape. Competitiveness is the only way to benefit from globalisation and not become a victim”, said the prime minister.

He said that improving competitiveness was a major initiative taken by the government and for the first time in the country's history, a Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) has been created by the government in collaboration with USAID.

This fund will help institutionalise measures to improve competitiveness at the district, provincial, federal government levels as well as in the private sector, he added.

He emphasised on the necessity to provide accurate and updated data well in time to all domestic and foreign agencies so that they can make correct assessment of Pakistan's state of competitiveness.

He said the need to identify areas of improvement was as critical as the improvement itself. He said Pakistan needs to focus on improving health, education, skills, and technology and infrastructure sectors.

The prime minister said the CSF will work in partnership with the WEF and Competitiveness Councils in the USA and European Union.

Jonetham Addleton, country director USAID in his presentation about the salient features of Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) said Pakistan has been consistently improving in terms of competitiveness and dynamism.

He said the private sector of Pakistan needs to work on the medium and long-term strategies as one of the many steps to improve its competitiveness.—APP