Army, Political, Feudal & Business Elite Don’t Want What Pakistan’s Economy Needs?

What Pakistan’s economy needs is exactly what its army doesn’t want. Ahmed Jamal Pirzada, Bristol University, explains why Pakistanis are poor, why is growth not happening. Why Pakistan has boom and bust cycles and India and Bangladesh don’t and how this impacts us. How important is trade with India and how does the army role in the economy and how its role in politics affects country’s economic strategies negatively.

#Pakistanieconomylatest #Pakistanarmy #PakistanIMF #Pakistaniarmyeconomy #GVSDialogue

Do give your comments below. Subscribe and Share our video. This makes a big impact on growth of the channel and my ability to bring in experts to discuss different issues of interest.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
3:15 Why is Pakistan not thriving economically like the 80s & 90s?
7:54 Less investment & savings
12:47 Sudden ups and downs for Businesses
17:30 Constant Political instability
24:31 Lack of public trust in the government
26:25 Is Pakistan on terminal decline?
32:31 Way forward to get out of this economic turmoil

Dr Ahmed Jamal Pirzada tweets @ajpirzada
Najma tweets @MinhasNajma

Najma Minhas is Managing Editor, Global Village Space. She has worked with National Economic Research Associates (NERA) in New York, Lehman Brothers in London and Standard Chartered Bank in Pakistan. Before launching GVS, she worked as a consultant with World Bank, and USAID. Najma studied Economics at London School of Economics and International Relations at Columbia University, NewYork. she tweets at @MinhasNajma.
Do give your comments below. Subscribe and Share our video.

Najma tweets @MinhasNajma
Follow Global Village Space (GVS) on twitter @GVS_News

Najma Minhas is Managing Editor, Global Village Space. She has worked with National Economic Research Associates (NERA) in New York, Lehman Brothers in London and Standard Chartered Bank in Pakistan. Before launching GVS, she worked as a consultant with World Bank, and USAID. Najma studied Economics at London School of Economics and International Relations at Columbia University, NewYork. she tweets at @MinhasNajma.

[shanaK]

Najma, Indian, Prime Minister Modi puts it” Pakistan is causing its own self to die.” he means that the rulers of Pakistan are causing Pakistan to die by it’s own death. Unless the building blocks like the law and order, the justice system, political system, and respect for human being are not put into consideration Pakistan cannot become a progressive country. They first need to become normal people for anything good to happen in Pakistan.

[quddusquddus]

When there is no money in the pocket, a beggar becomes a chatterbox.

[vp]

Nearly every Pakistani says that Pakistan was doing far more better economically than India till the 90, s which is true. I am an novice on these matters but as far as my understanding goes India followed a socialist economy to begin with and concentrated in its education, land reforms and agriculture. India went through what is called the Green (agriculture) revolution and the White (milk) revolution, opening of its education like creating IIT, IIM, s etc and then threw open her economy in the 90, s after approaching the IMF for the first and last time that too after pledging its gold as surety. . Pakistan on the other hand became a dependent state soon after independence and relied heavily on USA, joining various pacts and getting grants and military aid and equipment in return before they went to the IMF for the first time, . Another factor was that Pakistan's economy till the 70.s also thrived on the exports from East Pakistan at that time which ironically no Pakistani talks about. Next they got the bonanza during the first Afghan war and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan where Pakistan received free military and economic aid and grants which was repeated after 2001.. In short though Pakistan's economy was far better than India till the 90, s it was more because of these factors, loan write offs and the like. This made Pakistan an aid and loan dependent country to which they got addicted and could never come out off. Pakistan has again gone and fallen into the Chinese trap, which they will realize in the coming future with reports from Pakistani economic writers saying that China is tying future loans on the clearing of pending electricity generation charges worth about 1.8 billion dollars. And finally right since its creation Pakistan made itself a security state instilling the fear of the large Hindu neighbor in the minds of its people results which can be seen by the tight grip of the Pakistan military on the social, political, financial and economic aspects of Pakistan with the army heavily involved in multiple businesses and also the army chief sitting on economic panels. deciding on FDI in the country and sale of loss making assets. Result is Pakistan today is financially trapped. Going for 25 loans in 66 years (starting 1958) is no mean achievement. I am not even talking about the loans from World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Saudi Arabia, UAE Qatar China etc. The truth is today Pakistan is taking loans to repay loans. Yes Pakistan was economically better than India and many countries at one point of time. That is what nearly every average Pakistani believes in even today

[nazimhaji]

Military in the barracks and the Mulla in the masjid are two basic serious flaws

[muhammadtufail]

In Pakistan public is no where but military is everywhere - Mother of all evils in the country

[ashitpatel]

Even in the 50s & 60s, Indian produced skilled and educated people from Universities like IIT. They went to Silicon Valley, unlike Pakistan education level is that north African level with Islamic regards to Science,

[shahroseamir]

Good job Ms. Minhas. This was a very dry subject. Please don’t get discouraged by lack of participation or comments by the viewers. Continue the good work and you will start attracting the relevant viewership. Excellent work.

[taneemtaha]

HINDU GROWTH RATE !! NOT HINDUPHOBIC MUCH?? AND THEN WE CRY ISLAMOPHOBIA - HYPOCRISY AT BEST!

[srinivaskumar]

In 50's India was building it's own institutions & own Industry

[tksrajan]

You still missed the elephant in the room. For the sake of argument let's assume that Pakistan today has a perfect democracy, the military is not involved in anything other than defence and the govt decides to open the economy like India did in1992. You will still struggle to attract investments. The reasons are
1. You have not invested in human capital. So those investors cant find skills required to run their businesses
2. You are a highly radicalized society with laws that give no comfort to investors
3.Because of this radicalisation, you have severe law and order problem which puts investments at great risk.

Unless you fix the above, nothing will work for your economy. If you start now, mau be in the next 20 years you will have an atmosphere that is conducive to investment and growth

[shahanshah]

Good supplement to Moeed Pirzada analyses.

[arjumandminai]

India invested in education, in self reliance, while Pakistan started living on borrowed money from 1960s. In 1990s, India was able to take advantage of it's educated majority. We didn't invest in education, deliberately.
Pakistan opened up much earlier. Too much. Without getting transfer of technology, with lowest productivity, with overarching shadows of corruption, particularly in politics, institutions, and ofcourse the industry.
The lowest rate of savings and tax to GDP ratio, are directly related to corruption and the control of Mafias in every aspect of life.
Try naming an Indian politician settling abroad with loads of money siphoned off and laundered. Same goes for the Establishment, businessmen, and the common man follows them.

[martin]

When there was a muslim appeasing government in INDIA (congress) they name it hindu rate of growth and now when foreign media terms this government as "hindu nationalists" under which INDIA is growing by 7-8% now what you will call it? and in Pakistan is it "maulana" rate of growth?

[sayyedilyas]

With all due respect. I think the professor is missing out on a major point which is if you open up your market towards a neighbour like India you’ll be completely ransacked because we do not have any upper hand in regards to skills, infrastructure. therefore their products will always be superior and cheaper hence killing Pakistani business.
What needs to be done which at the moment looks like wishful thinking is an honest effort towards improving Pakistan’s workforce skill, education, infrastructure, industrial set up, transportation, storage and above all the right political path and will

[YTaahmed]

Congratulations. Great conversation. Identifies the basic Trust issue, and the problem of rulers having economic interests which keeps them from introducing reforms and opening up the country/economy. The Army being the biggest economic entity of the country forces them to not lets others rule the country/economy.

[hasnainy]

Dr Pirzada did not seem to know about the multiple ethnicities in China! Mind boggling

[nazimhaji]

Pakistan has a CONSTITUTION and we must all protect and respect it

[vsIMF]

You forgot to mention the biggest problem: the govt and khalai makhlooq keep printing rupees which keeps the public trapped in a never ending poverty cycle: if incomes increase 10%, inflation increases 20%, and if incomes increase 20%, inflation increases 40%. Incomes can never overtake inflation because of constant rupee printing

[bravewarrior]

Pakistan's economic mess is a result of a complex interplay of factors including high debt obligations, low tax revenues, reliance on foreign loans, poor economic management, corruption, overspending on defense, spreading terrorism inside and outside the border, lack of reforms, and political instability. Addressing these challenges will require significant structural reforms, increased tax collection, reduced reliance on borrowing, and a focus on sustainable economic growth strategies.

One very critical point both the speaker are missing is Pakistan is not opening up to the world and no direct foreign investment is because of Allah, Mulla Army and producing "Terrorism factories"as a strategic assets.

Risk benefit for foreign direct investment is very bad in Pakistan.

[SalK-SK]

Very useful discussion covering a lot of areas in a short vid. Good value for time. Think more discussions could be held with the guest & others on economy, comparisons vs neighbours, & related areas. Down the road there could be a discussion on decades from 80’s to now for diff countries.