Get rid of Elitist Economy: Only way to get Economic Stability

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Dr.Syed Mehboob

Senior Research Editor

The News Lark, political and economic analyst

Pakistan, despite great economic potential and being rich in mineral and natural resources, having  60% youth in its population, is still far behind in economic development and prosperity. There is one major cause of this financial instability and that is the elitist economy.

2023-24 was a year when Pakistan started back its journey towards economic stabilization and several initiatives were taken by the government in this regard. The fiscaldeficit for July-March 2023-24 was 3.7 % of GDP while the current account was in surplus of US$ 434 million in Marach2024 and for April it was US$ 491 million in surplus.

Current Account Deficit

Pakistan’s GDP at current market value was Rs. 106,045 billion or US$ 375 billion. It was US$ 338 billion in 2022-23 increased by 26.4 % for the period July-March. Per Capita income in nine months of  2022-23 was US$ 1,551 which increased to US$ 1,680 in 2023-24. Investment to GDP was 14.13 % in July-Marach 2022-23 which declined to 13.14% in 2023-24. Private investment increased by 15.8 %,

Agriculture growth was the highest in 19 years to a record 6.2 % as compared to 2.27 % in 2022-23. Major crop growth was significant at 11.61% a  31.4 million tonnes compared to 28.2 million tonnes last year.

Cotton crop which is very important for the textile industry was 10.2 million bales in July-March 2023-24 as compared to 4.9 million bales in 2022-23. This was an increase of 108.2 percent. Rice was another important crop which grew by 34.8 % in 2023-24 to 9.9 million tonnes as compared to 7.30 million tonnes in nine months of 2022-23. Sugarcane production was 87.6 million during last year. Maize yield increased to 11 million tonnes this year while last year its production was 9.8 million tonnes. Fruits production grew 8.4 %, vegetables 5.77%, Pluses 1.45%. Live Stocks which is 60.04% of Agriculture and 14.63% of GDP is very important, It grew 3.89% in 2023-24. As compared to last year 3.7%. The fishing sector grew 0.81%.

Lending to the Agriculture Sector

Fiscal policy continued to grapple with the legacy of persistently high fiscal deficit and debt.

Total expenditure increased by  33.4 % due to a 54% increase in markup payments.

Revenue Growth

Non-tax revenue increased by 90.7 %.

FBR Revenue

Inflation

Expenditure on Education

Both Federal and Provincial governments’ expenditure on education is 1.5% of the GDP. It was Rs. 1,251.06 billion while the literacy rate was 62.8 %.

Literacy rate

Out-of-School Children   32%

The nation’s state-run commercial entities incurred losses amounting to a staggering Rs1.395 trillion over the fiscal years 2021 and 2022.

SOEs Loss

No of Universities

No of teachers in Universities: 61,204

Foreign Exchange Reserves  US$ 14.6 billion 2023-24

GDP Growth +2.38 %, Agriculture 6.25 %, Industry 1.2 % Services 1.2%

Total Expenditure Rs. 13,682 billion + 36.6 %

Public Debt

Total Rs. 67,325 billion

Domestic debt: Rs. 43,432 billion

External debt US$. 86.7 billion

Interest on Public debt Rs: 5,518 billion

Average pet month: Rs. 613.11 billion

Per Day: Rs. 20.437 billion

Per Hour: Rs. 851.541 million

Per Minute: Rs. 14.19 million

Per Second Rs. 236,500

It is high time to get rid of debt and an interest-based economy which was only beneficial for elites and a worst enemy of common Pakistani people and now is a security threat.