Pakistan & Gulf Economist

Pakistan’s Economic Growth without Development: What we learn from China?

Thirty years back, when China starts its transition phase we observe inexplicable growth of China where they are beating the expectations. No Country has ever managed to pull 70 million nationals out from vicious circle of poverty accompanied with the growth rates of more than 10%. None managed to expand its economic pie with the multiple of 42 that is from $305 billion-$12.7 trillion but this Chinese growth has a social and cultural side. Deng Xiaoping is the person who acted as the catalyst to intensify the growth targets so since that time, a shared work ethic is etched in the Chinese mind, ably perpetuated and supported by those who govern. This kind of ethic works well in unison with the aim of enhancing capacity to perform and grow while the responsibility of long-term goals has never come at the expense of the private sector in China.

The inexplicable growth is also the result of restructuring of the Chinese bureaucracy as, from 1982 and 1984 almost 70% of local administrators were changed with a young and educated people who are expected to have a better vision of the future which propagates ownership of reforms at local level. If we evaluate the civil services across the world than it is concluded with the fact that Chinese civil services ranked on top as it follows the structure that, only best are promoted which will bring huge competition to perform better unlike the hereditary system in Pakistan and these changes are the root cause of ownership of reforms. Civil services at China is the competitive service in the world with the best structure of hiring and promoting the best ones and they are only working on ideas which will make them superior than other nations. Chinese Government always believe in the fact that long term is not possible by only relying on private sector but the institutional mechanism facilitate the private sector to be the part of growth and when it is combined with efficient local governance than it trickle down to the bottom levels as well.

They always believe in the fact that there is no short cut to development but to perform and the best part which is necessary to learn from China is to ignore the advices of outsiders so, lessons we learn from China’s development demand unlearning in several domains so, if we really wants to follow Chinese model of growth than we should start from development of human capital by educational transformation which provide a base required for sustainable development and open the new doors of prosperity.

This analysis not only highlighted the administrative system of China which catalyze their economic growth and development but also pin point the lacking behind Pakistan economic performance that translates into growth without development as Pakistan’s machinery is incompetent, inefficient with the no affiliation of political parties to economic wellbeing of the country. Local Government share are totally missing from the economy. The diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan were established in May 1951. Since then, China and Pakistan experienced very strong political and military relations. The China-Pakistan economic relations started to bolster after the conclusion of Free Trade Agreement in 2007. China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement is appearing to be a stepping stone in augmenting the economic relations between China and Pakistan. In 1978, China switched over to export promotion policy from import-substitution strategy. China became the fourth-tier of the flying geese model and attracted a tremendous amount of FDI. Only in 2011, China received worth of US$ 106 billion as FDI. Pakistan can become a fifth-tier in the hierarchical structure of the flying geese model by following the open-door policy just like that of China. Chinese model can serve Pakistan as an opening door for the export-led growth.

[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]The author is MD IRP/ Faculty Department of H&SS, Bahria University Karachi[/box]

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