Pakistan Can be Part of World’s Top 15 Economies by 2047: Planning Minister

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal Monday said Pakistan has the potential to emerge among the top 10-15 largest economies of the world by 2047, which demands continuous struggle of the entire system as a team with continuity of policy. He was addressing as a keynote speaker at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and United National Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly held the first-ever Data for Development (D4D) high-level policy dialogue titled “Enabling People-Centric Development Planning in Pakistan”. He said data generation, data collection, and data dissemination were imperative to make objective and reliable data accessible to drive the national development agenda. He extended an invitation to establish a platform that acts as a resource center for government to inform policy decisions. The minister mentioned that evidence-based planning is critical for convincing planning and only possible through data as it is the biggest weapon of development and also a tool for massive destruction. He urged the forum to develop a resource center that should serve as a guiding platform for the government for policy making.