Prof. Lewis Lorwin has defined Planning in the following words:
- "Economic planning is a scheme of economic organization..... for the purpose of utilizing all available resources to achieve maximum satisfaction of peoples' needs within a given time".
Why Planning is required for Development
Economic Planning is essential for the development of economy in any state; Following reasons suggest that the question of economic planning deserves special attention of the policy makers in Pakistan.
i. National income needs to be enhanced.
ii. Standards of living need to be improved by increasing per capita income level.
iii. New Job opportunities need to be created in order to meet the problem of unemployment.
iv. In order to stabilize prices inflation needs to be checked.
v. Self-sufficiency in food needs to be achieved.
vi. Disparity among different classes of the people needs to be reduced.
vii. A batter balance of payment needs to be acquired by improving foreign exchange earning capacity.
viii. Investment behavior needs to be reoriented and brought in conformity with the national interests instead of the narrow personal interests of the investors.
ix. Fundamental rights of the labour force need to be protected; their working conditions and wages need to be improved.
x. Process of sustainable economic growth needs to be set in by creating an atmosphere congenial for long term development planning.
Progress of the Agriculture Sector
Importance of Agriculture in Pakistan's Economy
Pakistan is basically an agrarian economy; following factors signify the importance of agriculture in our economic structure:
i. Twenty one percent of our GNP comes from agriculture sector.
ii. We fulfil our 70 percent to 80 percent foreign exchange requirements from the income generated from agriculture sector.
iii. Thirty nine percent of our total population is employed as labour force in the agriculture sector.
iv. Seventy nine precent of our total population depends upon agriculture indirectly.
v. Inspite of our enormous dependence on agriculture sector level of our agriculture produce is extremely low, i.e., we produce only 20 monds of wheat per acre as compared to 50 monds per acre in the United States and only 11 monds of rice per acre as compared to 50 monds in Italy.
vi. About 30 percent of the population which depends on agriculture is semi-employed.
vii. Two thirds of our total population lives in rural areas and depends solely, on agriculture.
viii. With the exception of a limited number of big land owners the rural population is living a life of untold misery and deprivation.
ix. Due to backward agriculture, unemployment in the rural areas is widespread.
x. Due to immense privation, level of illiteracy in the rural areas is almost double of the urban areas.
xi. A large portion of the rural population has almost no or very little access to facilities like roads, railways, health and education.
xii. All these facts lead us to the conclusion that backwardness of agriculture is the root cause of tardy rural development, it we want to make our country economically strong we shall have to address the problems of rural and agricultural development on priority basis.
Industrial Development
Background: Pakistan started with an extremely weak industrial base after independence. The British had concentrated all their industrial establishments in a few big cities like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Under Partition Plan all these cities were made a part of India. At the time of partition, major industries established in India were, textile, jute, sugar, steel, iron, cement, paper and glass.
At the time of partition, there were 921, big industrial units in India, out of these only 34 came to the share of Pakistan (less than four percent of the total), and this was unfair because 20 percent of the total Indian population lived in Pakistan. Employment capacity of the industries which came to the share of Pakistan was even poorer. Indian industrial units had a total capacity of employing 11, 37, 150 persons daily, Pakistan's 34 units had the capacity of employing only 26, 400 persons daily i.e., only 2.32 percent of the total.
Importance of Industry in National Development
As we have studied earlier that Pakistan is basically an agrarian economy and in order to make rapid economic progress we need to develop our agriculture on priority basis, but this does not mean that industrial development is less important. We should pay due attention to the progress of industry for reasons given below:
- Modern agriculture cannot be carried out without the help of mechanical equipment. Modernization of agriculture demands abundant supply of agriculture implements, pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers, which obviously needs strong industrial support.
- In order to earn more foreign exchange, it is necessary that our agricultural produce is not exported raw but in processed form. Processing requires an agro-based industrial set up.
- Pakistan has to import large quantities of raw and processed goods in order to meet the demands of her ever-expanding population as well as for keeping a balance between exports and imports, for this we should try to manufacture consumer's goods within our country and establish factories for this purpose.
- By expanding our industrial base we can provide employment for maximum number of our people, this will alleviate poverty problem and help us in improving our people's quality of life.
Trade and Commerce
The term 'trade' is applied to the process in which countries buy and sell goods to each other. The term is also applied to some special business like 'cotton trade'. Commerce literally means 'buying and selling of goods and services'.
By rating the level of progress, a particular county has achieved, in the field of trade and commerce we can determine the level of its general economic progress.
In developing countries, like Pakistan economic planning is considered to be the basic requirement for development. Enlisted here are some basic facts about our foreign trade structure:
i. Base of our exports is extremely narrow. Our imports are double as compared to our exports.
ii. our industry is import-oriented. More than one third of our exports consist of industrial raw material. It effects our economic development. Which is basic cause of increase in poverty.
iii. Population is growing fast and the number of consumers is increasing accordingly. We have virtually turned into a consumer's society. Consumer market is expanding but production is not increasing at the same pace.
iv. Agriculture produce is declining due to primitive agriculture practices; number of sick industrial units is growing rapidly.
v. Investment has been adversely affected due to political unrest and terrorist activities. Specially foreign investment is decreasing rapidly.
vi. Prices of industrial raw material, petroleum and natural gas are gradually increasing due to devaluation and inflation. This tendency has made it difficult for our industrialists to compete with the foreign products in the international as well as in the local market.
E-COMMERCE
E-Commerce is the latest innovation in the traditional commerce techniques. E stands for Electronic. E-Commerce implies the buying and selling of goods and services through networks i.e., Internet and E-Mail etc. With the passage of time plastic money (credit cards etc.) is replacing currency notes. Internet and credit cards are the instruments through which cross- border-trade-and-commerce has become possible and the barriers that are interposed between business transactions have been automatically removed.
IT (Information Technology)
IT is a common term familiar for everyone working in the fields of information and education. IT has made impact on almost all spheres of social life and this impact is ever increasing. During the last two decade of the 20th century personal computers have developed into a powerful medium for accessing, processing, manipulation, projection and broadcast of the data and information. Internet has emerged as a very powerful tool of dispersing information. Our world has virtually turned into a "global village". Modern electronic techniques have brought human being and ideas into a very close interaction. Knowledge of the information tools and techniques is as essential for a modern man as basic literacy. Information technology has given us a new vision about the future; it has equipped us with the tools we can apply for making our society literate and civilized, and expand our frontiers of knowledge. Pakistan like all other developing countries is in dire need of revamping its IT infrastructure on revolutionary basis. We need an entirely new generation of IT experts and need to create an atmosphere congenial for the development of modern information culture. In order to achieve this goal, we shall first of all, have to make basic computer work stations available at all levels.
Our IT Programme had to be very comprehensive and pervasive, but our less developed areas need to be especially targeted. Obviously first step, we should take in this direction, is to connect our remote areas with Internet facilities.
