Punjab seen as a driver for Pakistan's growth

Former caretaker finance minister and has served as vice-president of the World Bank Shahid Javed Burki sees Punjab province as a driver for Pakistan's growth.

Several years ago, I was invited by the then government of Punjab to inaugurate a series of lectures funded by the World Bank on Punjab's economic prospects. The Bank at that time was working on a study that studied Pakistan's economic future. The institution was concerned that the country's policymakers had not fully grasped Pakistan's potential and were not working on realising it. In my talk and those that were to follow me, we were to give our take on how Punjab, the country's most populous province and also its most advanced, could lead the rest of the country towards a higher growth trajectory. My lecture, held at the Pearl Continental Hotel, was well attended. In the audience were government officials, some business people and a few from the world of politics. The questions that followed my presentation showed some surprise at my optimism since I had suggested that with the adoption of the right set of policies, the provincial rate of growth could reach eight per cent a year in about five years.

Following the lecture the government asked me to prepare a policy paper, outlining the actions the government needed to take to achieve the rate of growth I had said was within the reach of the province. This was done by the policy institute I was then engaged in establishing in Lahore. That institute, now called the Burki Institute of Public Policy (BIPP), is fully functional. It produces an annual report in which we analyse the state of the economy as well as one subject we believe should be of interest to those who hold the reins of power in both Islamabad as well as in Lahore, Punjab's provincial capital.

Among the subjects we have covered is an analysis of the reasons behind the relative backwardness of the southern districts of Punjab; the damage caused to the economy by the severe shortage of electric power; and the rise of extremist politics attended by terrorist attacks.

In the BIPP's Punjab report we presented a policy matrix we believed the government could adopt to accelerate the rate of growth of the economy as well as bring about social improvement. We adopted some of the thinking espoused by the Boston-based economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robertson in their well-received book, Why Nations Fail.

Their main thesis was that there is a close relationship between the way economic and political systems evolve. It requires an inclusive economic system to develop inclusive politics. By "inclusive" they meant systems that work for all segments of the population and all regions of the country. Opposite to these were "exclusive" systems that rewarded only narrow segments of the population and a few wellconnected regions. Soon after our report was done, there was a change of administration in Lahore following the elections of 2013. The report was shelved.

It is very gratifying that some of what we said in our report has been picked up in a document issued recently by the Government of Punjab under the title of Punjab Spatial Strategy, 2047. The time span covered by the PSS ends when Pakistan would be celebrating its 100th birthday.

The subtitle to the report - "A framework for integrated spatial planning and sustainable development" - describes well the material covered. This is a handsomely produced document; it also adopts an approach that is not common in the literature on economic and social development.

The report's aim is "to ensure integrated spatial planning for transforming Punjab into an economically developed and sustainable region by adding a spatial dimension to the development and planning process."