Environment in East Asia and Southeast Asia: Lessons for Pakistan (Keynote Address)

It is a matter of great honour and pleasure for me to welcome you all to the 12th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists. It is now widely understood that despite past progress, Pakistan will be facing formidable development challenges over the next two decades. This realisation calls for a serious re-evaluation of the long-term development strategy as the country approaches the 21st century with its particular opportunities and challenges in a rapidly changing world economy. Accordingly, we also understand that the research agenda of professional associations like us, and of organisations like PIDE, must address forward-looking policy options and trade-offs in critical areas for sustained economic and social development, which has to be multi-disciplinary in nature. Of course, PIDE has responded to the new needs with a professional preparedness that only comes from long experience and timely perception, and reorientated its research priorities. The traditional areas of macro-economic research, sector studies, and the micro-economic behaviour of economic agents remain strong. But, in addition now, we are studying ethnicity, gender, technological change, regional development, and environment as crucial areas of research. The shift in the research focus is not only reflected in this year’s conference theme, ‘Macroeconomic Adjustment in the Era of Globalisation’, but also in the topic of my Keynote Address.