Publication Date

6-29-2010

Description

I agree with the main message of the Report that the link between Trade, Human Development and Economic growth is not straight forward and has to be created consciously by forward looking policies and strategies by both national governments and multilateral trade bodies. But having said that we must also recognize that South Asian countries have made remarkable progress in opening their economies since early 1990s. Till about 1990, trade-GDP ratio was 20 percent which has escalated to 52 percent by 2008. The three large countries of the region – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – started the process of liberalization in early 1990s. The results have been impressive except for Pakistan where political discontinuities and uncertainties did not produce the same kind of results as achieved by India and Bangladesh. High growth rates over almost two decades have improved standards of living and lifted millions of poor above the poverty line. During 2000-08 South Asia’s growth rate was closer to 7 percent annually and every one of the seven countries in the region surpassed growth rate of 5 percent. It is true that the absolute number of poor has remained stagnant since 1991 but the proportion of the poor living below $1.25 has fallen from 51.7 percent in 1990 to 40.3 percent in 2005.

Notes

Keynote address delivered at the Launch of Report on Human Development in South Asia 2009 organized by Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre at Lahore on June 29, 2010

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