Consequently, the incidence of poverty has halved from 40 per cent to around 20 per cent. In per-capita terms, the growth rate was 2.5 per cent annually. Pakistan's overall growth record has been quite impressive on average, the economy grew at an annual rate of slightly above 5 per cent during the last six decades. In terms of official exchange rate, per capita income is $1700 compared to $100 in 1947. LIFE Magazine had predicted in its issue of January 1948 that Pakistan would collapse within six months as it would not be able to sustain itself economically.įrom such a shaky start, Pakistan today is the 24th largest economy in the world with a GDP of approximately 1500 billion (PPP dollars) and per capita income of PPP $6672. Only a few hundred civil servants opted to serve the country and they formed the nucleus of the new government machinery sitting in dilapidated and makeshift offices.

The financial resources allocated to it at the time of Partition were never released by the Reserve Bank of India and the salaries of the civil servants were paid by a few rich Muslim businessmen. The country had no big industry worth the name except a few cotton mills, a cement factory, railway repair shops. From India, Pakistan got another eight million impoverished Muslim peasants and hardly any skilled technicians or businessmen. More than 80 per cent were small farmers, and the rest were shopkeepers and artisans. At the time of independence, the prospects of the economic survival of a ramped Pakistan appeared quite dim as it inherited an extremely weak and fragile economy.

Pakistan by Ishrat Husain