Self-Reliance and the Implications for Growth and ResourceMobilisation

Whereas self-reliant growth has been the avowed objective ofsuccessive governments in Pakistan, the realisation of self-reliance hasbecome even more difficult with the passage of time. Pakistan opted foran aid-dependent growth strategy in the early Sixties with a view toaccelerating the growth of output. It was argued that with the help offoreign aid Pakistan could realise a growth rate of 7.5 percent andthrough higher rates of savings and higher growth of exports she wouldattain 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 besufficient to finance 95 percent of investment in 1985 when investmentwas expected to be as large as 22.9 percent of GNP. However, Pakistancould finance only 70.6 percent of her investment in 1984-85 while theinvestment was only 17.3 percent of GNP. The Perspective Plan [seeGovernment of Paki~tan (1988)] aims at self-reliance by the year 2003;it p~ojects that domestic resources would finance 95 percent ofinvestment but the investment would rise only to 18.4 percent of GNP bythe year 2003.