Musharraf directs Check on Price Hike, Inflationary trends
By Shoaib Jabbar 'Pakistan Times' Special Correspondent

RAWALPINDI: President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday directed the government to control price hike and inflationary trends for the benefit of common man and stressed the need for sustaining the economic growth rate through regular monitoring.

He was speaking here at a presentation by the Ministry of Finance also attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, to prepare a ten-year roadmap for country’s economic development.

The President directed that steps be taken to further bring down prices of essential items and called for regular monitoring of food inflation.

The meeting was informed that with the increased availability of essential food items like onions, potatoes, pulses and tomatoes their prices were declining.

The meeting was informed that since December the inflation has dropped from 8.9 percent to 6.6 percent while the food related inflation has declined to 7.7 percent from 12.7 percent due to increased supply situation.

President Musharraf expressed satisfaction on the overall economic development and directed to sustain the momentum for transferring the economic gains at the grassroots level.

The President directed to diversify country’s industrial sector by developing the engineering sector and “viewing the industry beyond textiles.”

He also called for developing the livestock and dairy sector through value addition.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the Foreign Direct Investment was likely to touch the US 6 billion dollars mark in the current year that was far higher than the US 3.8 billion during last year.

He said the foreign investment companies were looking at Pakistan as a lucrative market and cited the acquisition of Paktel by China Mobile and said several foreign banks were trying to merge with local private banks.

Dr Ashfaq Hassan, Advisor on Economic Affairs later told newsmen that the government would be able to achieve its growth target of around 7 percent during the current fiscal year. He said the international financial agencies were upbeat about Pakistan’s economic growth even higher than 7 percent.

He said the President directed the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs to prepare a comprehensive 10-year economic development plan and directed for sustaining the growth rate at about 8 percent in the next decade.

He said under the 10-year roadmap new targets will be set for achieving higher growth rates and reforms and policies will be finalized to achieve these goals.

He said the projected growth rate of 6-8 percent could help double the per capita income, generate more economic activity, help alleviate poverty and improve quality of life.

Dr Ashfaq was optimistic that the country’s agriculture sector would sustain the 4-5 percent of growth rate over the next ten years.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Industries and Production Jahangir Khan Tareen, Minister for Food and Agriculture Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Salman Shah, Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan, Governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Shamshad Akhtar, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission M Akram Sheikh, Secretary General Revenue Division Abdullah Yousaf and senior officials.●