Self-Reliance and the Implications for Growth and Resource Mobilisation

Abstract

Whereas self-reliant growth has been the avowed objective of successive governments in Pakistan, the realisation of self-reliance has become even more difficult with the passage of time. Pakistan opted for an aid-dependent growth strategy in the early Sixties with a view to accelerating the growth of output. It was argued that with the help of foreign aid Pakistan could realise a growth rate of 7.5 percent and through higher rates of savings and higher growth of exports she would attain self-reliance in a period of 20 years. [See Chenery and MacEwan (1965).] The perspective Plan: 1965-85 [see Government of Pakistan (1965)] had projected that the domestic resources of Pakistan would be sufficient to finance 95 percent of investment in 1985 when investment was expected to be as large as 22.9 percent of GNP. However, Pakistan could finance only 70.6 percent of her investment in 1984-85 while the investment was only 17.3 percent of GNP. The Perspective Plan [see Government of Paki~tan (1988)] aims at self-reliance by the year 2003; it p~ojects that domestic resources would finance 95 percent of investment but the investment would rise only to 18.4 percent of GNP by the year 2003.