Comments on “Planning Experience in Pakistan”

Pakistan’s industrial achievement in a relatively short span of time and in the light of the experience of the similarly placed countries has been favourably commented upon by the observers and analysts, both at home and abroad. Dr. M. N. Huda, in his Conference Address, refers to this impressive record of Pakistan’s progress in the course of which many industries have grown from the state of infancy and that of teething troubles to a state of viability and adult¬hood [2, Pp. 10-11]. Indeed, the rapid growth of the manufactured exports from Pakistan in recent years may be considered as an indication of the extent to which the industrial progress in Pakistan has been successful. For the future, he rightly advocates an aggressive but selective industrialization based on both the home and export markets. Moreover, his observations do em¬phasize the need for increasing the productivity of the existing industries as well as for a careful application of the criterion of efficiency in the selection of the future pattern of industrialization. This note seeks to indicate the inter¬relationship between the industrial efficiency and the export performance; it draws attention to a few neglected aspects of the recent studies on indust¬rial efficiency in Pakistan such as the intra-firm differences in efficiency. It explores the rationale and the implications of ‘infant-industry” protection for industrialization in Pakistan.