Harvard Kennedy School CID Projects Pakistan GDP Growth to Average 5.97% Till 2025

Via , an interesting look at Pakistan’s economic growth trajectory:

In its latest economic growth projections, Kennedy School’s Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University expects Pakistan’s annual GDP growth to average 5.97% over the next 8 years, ranking it as the world’s 6th fastest growing economy.

Growth Projections. Source: HKS CID Report

The Harvard growth projections are a bit more optimistic that other short, medium and long-term GDP growth forecasts for Pakistan offered by HSBC’s 5% through 2050,   IMF’s 5.5% till 2020, World Bank’s 5.8% until 2019 and  The Economist EIU’s 5.7% in 2017

Among the top 10 fastest growing economies, the CID projects Uganda to grow the fastest at 7.73%, followed by India 7.72%, Tanzania 6.66%, Senegal 6.49%, Kenya 5.98%, Pakistan 5.97%, Indonesia 5.82%, Mali 5.75%, Turkey 5.64% and Philippines 5.43%.

Among Pakistan’s other neighbors,  China is forecast to grow at 4.41%, Sri Lanka at 3.77% and Bangladesh at 2.82%,

CID also released new country rankings of the 2015 Economic Complexity Index (ECI), the measure that forms the basis for much of the growth projections. It ranks Pakistan at 99 for economic complexity.

Economic Coplexity. Source: HKS CID Report

The complexity of an economy is related to the multiplicity of useful knowledge embedded in it, according to OECD.  Because individuals are limited in what they know, the only way societies can expand their knowledge base is by facilitating the interaction of individuals in increasingly complex networks in order to make products. We can measure economic complexity by the mix of these products that countries are able to make. 

The countries that show the fastest declines in the complexity rankings in the decade ending in 2015 nearly all have had policy regimes that have been adversarial to the accumulation of productive knowhow, with the largest declines in Cuba (-50), Venezuela (-44), Zimbabwe (-23), Tajikistan (-22), Libya (-22), and Argentina (-18). Globally, the fastest risers in complexity in 2015 have been the Philippines, Malawi (+26 to 94th), Uganda (+24 to 77th), Vietnam (+24 to 64th), and Cambodia (+16 to 88th).

The ECI finds the most complex countries in the world, as measured by the average complexity of their export basket, remain Japan, Switzerland, Germany, South Korea, and Austria. Of the 40 most complex countries, the biggest risers in the rankings for the decade ending in 2015 have been the Philippines (ECI rank: up 28 positions to rank 32nd globally), Thailand (+11 to 25th), China (+10 to 23rd), Lithuania (+9 to 30th), and South Korea (+8 to 4th). Conversely, the biggest losers have been Canada (-9 to 33rd), Serbia, Belarus, Spain (-6 to 29th), and France (-6 to 16th).

US-based consulting firm Deloitte and Touche estimates that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects will create some 700,000 direct jobs during the period 2015–2030 and raise its GDP growth rate to 7.5%,  adding 2.5 percentage points to the country’s current GDP growth rate of 5%.

An additional 1.4 million indirect jobs will be added in supply-chain and service sectors to support the projects.  An example of indirect jobs is the massive expansion in Pakistan’s cement production that will increase annual production capacity from 45 million tons to 65 million tons, according to a tweet by Bloomberg’s Faseeh Mangi. Other indirect jobs will be in sectors ranging from personal services to housing and transportation.

Improved security situation and rising investments, particularly the China Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC-related investments led by China, are helping accelerate the economic growth in the country.  It is the fear of CPEC’s success that appears to be driving a growing campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) waged by Pakistan’s detractors in South Asia region and around the world.



This entry was posted on Sunday, July 9th, 2017 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Pakistan.  You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  Both comments and pings are currently closed. 

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