Imran Khan's economic challenge: Rescue, Resuscitate, Reform Pakistan

Imran Khan's economic vision is bold and if he gets it right Pakistan could be a transformed country

 

International News → With cricketer turned politician Imran Khan on the cusp of becoming the next Wazir-e-Azam of Pakistan, his economic vision has the potential of transforming Pakistan's stuttering economy. But his road to redeem Pakistan's economy could ruffle a lot of feathers, including that of the Pakistan army which has a major role to play in Khan's rise to the top. Khan certainly faces an uphill task – the nation he will lead sits at the bottom of the pile on several important social and economic parameters.

The World Bank estimates that Pakistan's GDP growth rate will decline to 5 per cent in 2019 from 5.7 per cent in 2017. In 2018, Pakistan won't grow more than 5 per cent. In 2020, it will grow at 5.4 per cent – significantly lower than other South Asian nations like India and Bangladesh. In 2017, its per capita GDP grew by 3.6 per cent – again lower than India and Bangladesh but better than Sri Lanka.

Pakistan Election Results

In 2016, almost 5 million children in Pakistan were out of school. The country has the lowest primary school enrollment rate in the region. It has more child laborers than other nations in the neighborhood. Its labor participation rates are abysmal. It ranks 147 in the Ease of Doing Business Index – better than Bangladesh. Suicide bombings, armed insurgency and military coups are the order of the day gnawing away the nation's soul every single day. In many ways, the Pakistan Imran Khan is inheriting is a tinderbox waiting to explode.

One of the key aspects of Khan's economic reform program which he dubbed as a “five-point emergency plan” in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI) manifesto, which could ruffle many feathers and generate a political backlash from his opponents, pertains to radically reform the way Pakistan spends its Rs 4.75 trillion (1 USD equals 129 Pakistani rupees) budget. Khan has promised that among other things, he would be looking to reduce the defence budget of Pakistan.

While Khan hasn't specified how he intends to get Pakistan’s all-powerful military to reconcile to this, his plan is to trim Pakistan's $9.6 billion military budget which accounts for almost a fifth of the country's total budget.

Read More → Imran Khan's economic challenge

---

News Source : BS

GES 2017: Make in India for the world, Modi tells entrepreneurs

He said women entrepreneurs received over three-fourths of the Rs 4.28 lakh crore loans under the MUDRA Scheme since 2015.

Business News : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday invited global entrepreneurs to invest and make in India.

“To my entrepreneur friends from across the globe, I would like to say, come, make in India, invest in India, for India and for the world. I invite each one of you to become a partner in India’s growth story. And once again assure you of our wholehearted support,” he said, inaugurating the Global Entrepreneur Summit  2017 here.

The keynote was given by Ivanka Trump, advisor to US President Donald Trump, who is leading a US delegation to the summit. The event, being hosted by the governments of India and the US, is focused on women entrepreneurship; more than half of the 1,500 participants from 150 countries are women.

Listing the several initiatives of his government such as Startup India, the goods and services tax (GST), actions on black money and on bankruptcy and insolvency, he said his government has taken several steps to improve the business environment, leading to a jump in the country’s World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking (to 100 from 130 earlier) and improvement in the country’s ratings by Moody’s.

He said the government was not satisfied and would strive to improve further to the fiftieth rank on the World Bank rating. “Our StartUp India programme is a comprehensive action plan to foster entrepreneurship and promote innovation. It aims to minimise the regulatory burden and provide support to start-ups. Over 1,200 redundant laws have been scrapped, 87 rules for FDI have been eased in 21 sectors, and several government processes have been taken online,” Modi claimed.

Click to Read → Ivanka on Women Empowerment

Ivanka opens GES 2017 today: For global majors, all roads lead to Telangana

NITI Aayog CEO said summit was meant to help create an enabling ecosystem where entrepreneurs can innovate, forge global partnerships and grow.

Business News : Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, is all dressed up to welcome Ivanka Trump, who’s leading the US delegation for the eighth edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. From Taj Falaknuma, venue for state dinner to be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to Hitec City, where the summit is being organised for the next three days, Ivanka is the theme. But that’s not the only global attention that the city has been getting.

A senior official in the Telangana government pointed out that leading global brands such as Amazon, Walmart and IKEA are investing top dollars here. American retail major Walmart, which set up its first Hyderabad store a few years ago before Telangana happened, is gearing up to open two to three more cash and carry outlets in the city.

GES 2017: Ivanka Trump Reaches Hyderabad

“Hyderabad is a three-to-four-store market for Walmart,” a company executive told Business Standard. There’s no other city in India that Walmart has so far identified as a three-to-four-store market. Agra and Bhopal have two Walmart stores each and that’s the highest so far for any city.

Seattle-based e-commerce giant Amazon, too, has been upbeat on Telangana. The Jeff Bezos-led group set up India’s biggest fulfilment centre in Hyderabad some six months ago, spread over nearly 400,000 sq ft with close to 2.1 million cubic feet of storage space. Along with this, Amazon has five fulfilment centres in Telangana offering around 3.2 million cubic feet of storage. Also, its biggest campus, anywhere outside the US, will be ready at Gachibowli (Hyderabad) in 2019.

Click to Read → GES 2017