21:36
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ISLAMABAD: The pace of depleting foreign exchange reserves has started ringing alarming bells among the economic managers as the looming crisis might aggravate after heavy repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the third quarter (Jan-March) of the current fiscal year, said an economic manager on Wednesday.
“In the last financial year 2011-12, the foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) nosedived by $4 billion to $10.8 billion and if this pace persisted in the current fiscal year, then the foreign exchange reserves would stand at $6.4 billion, which could result in running of dollarisation and gripping of panic in the market,” a senior economic manager said, while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference organised by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission, International Growth Centres and others on Wednesday.
There has been no backup plan and the economic managers are clueless that how to manage the balance of payments crisis in the aftermath of March 2013 scenario, he said, adding that foreign inflows are not coming in through the auction of 3G licences, privatisation proceeds and others. Fortunately, the United States disbursed over $1.12 billion in the shape of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and is expected to receive another $600 million during the current fiscal year, said economist.
“The real worrisome indicator for us is growing pace of depletion of foreign exchange reserves that will put pressure on the exchange rate in the months ahead,” he added.
1. However, during the PIDE conference, a special session was also organised to honour Professor S. M. Naseem on the second day of the 28th annual general meeting and the conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists (PSDE).
Prof. Naseem is one of the founding members of the Department of Economics at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, which was established in 1968. He joined PIDE in 1965 in Karachi as a Research Economist. Dr Rashid Amjad, vice chancellor, PIDE, said that it is an honour for him to chair a session to pay tribute to Professor S. M. Naseem as he has fundamental contributions to development economics.
Prof. Naseem has done a lot of work on poverty and under-development issues in Pakistan, publishing both books and research articles, while working in the international and national organisations, such as the Asian Regional Team on Employment.
The PIDE vice chairman said that Prof. Naseem has the courage to go against the wind.Dr. Amjad highlighted the fact that nobody can write a paper on poverty without mentioning Prof. Naseem’s work.
Dr G. M. Arif, joint director, PIDE, highlighted Prof. Naseem’s work on poverty and acknowledged his contribution towards research on poverty-related issues. Dr Arif said that Prof. Naseem’s work on poverty has four dimensions, which are improving the methodological issues; estimating rural and urban poverty – which has led to the recent work on poverty estimation at the district and tehsil levels; Contextualising the poverty issues to find out reasons why poverty is high or low in some areas; and specially emphasising reliability of data to be used for poverty estimation. At the end of the session, Prof. Naseem thanked Dr Rashid Amjad, the late Dr A. R. Kemal and Dr Sarfraz K. Qureshi, former directors of PIDE, for involving him in research. One of the highlights of the proceedings was the Allama Iqbal lecture, delivered by Dr Yannos Papantoniou, former economy and finance minister of Greece.
The lecture was titled “Saving the euro: A test for globalisation”. Delivering the lecture, Dr Papantoniou said that the sovereign debt crisis, originating in the Eurozone immediately after the eruption of the global financial crash, highlights the dangers surrounding the globalisation process. The integration of product and financial markets, and services to a lesser extent, coupled with enormous technological progress in communications and transport has diffused growth to regions and continents, which were left behind previously.
However, the downside of this process is that national control over economic policy has been significantly diminished, even vanished for small economies, while intricate problems have emerged for international economic governance.
Professor M Ali Khan of the Johns Hopkins University, USA on “The economics in the economics of climate change” focused on the issues relating to the economics of climate change from the viewpoint of welfare economics. He also touched on the considerations that transcend the narrow bounds of economic theory and spill over to those delineated by recent political and ethical theorising. Once the externality is corrected, global warming presents no novel issues of the distribution of economic welfare between generations that are not already inherent in other investment choices.
“In the last financial year 2011-12, the foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) nosedived by $4 billion to $10.8 billion and if this pace persisted in the current fiscal year, then the foreign exchange reserves would stand at $6.4 billion, which could result in running of dollarisation and gripping of panic in the market,” a senior economic manager said, while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference organised by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission, International Growth Centres and others on Wednesday.
There has been no backup plan and the economic managers are clueless that how to manage the balance of payments crisis in the aftermath of March 2013 scenario, he said, adding that foreign inflows are not coming in through the auction of 3G licences, privatisation proceeds and others. Fortunately, the United States disbursed over $1.12 billion in the shape of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and is expected to receive another $600 million during the current fiscal year, said economist.
“The real worrisome indicator for us is growing pace of depletion of foreign exchange reserves that will put pressure on the exchange rate in the months ahead,” he added.
1. However, during the PIDE conference, a special session was also organised to honour Professor S. M. Naseem on the second day of the 28th annual general meeting and the conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists (PSDE).
Prof. Naseem is one of the founding members of the Department of Economics at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, which was established in 1968. He joined PIDE in 1965 in Karachi as a Research Economist. Dr Rashid Amjad, vice chancellor, PIDE, said that it is an honour for him to chair a session to pay tribute to Professor S. M. Naseem as he has fundamental contributions to development economics.
Prof. Naseem has done a lot of work on poverty and under-development issues in Pakistan, publishing both books and research articles, while working in the international and national organisations, such as the Asian Regional Team on Employment.
The PIDE vice chairman said that Prof. Naseem has the courage to go against the wind.Dr. Amjad highlighted the fact that nobody can write a paper on poverty without mentioning Prof. Naseem’s work.
Dr G. M. Arif, joint director, PIDE, highlighted Prof. Naseem’s work on poverty and acknowledged his contribution towards research on poverty-related issues. Dr Arif said that Prof. Naseem’s work on poverty has four dimensions, which are improving the methodological issues; estimating rural and urban poverty – which has led to the recent work on poverty estimation at the district and tehsil levels; Contextualising the poverty issues to find out reasons why poverty is high or low in some areas; and specially emphasising reliability of data to be used for poverty estimation. At the end of the session, Prof. Naseem thanked Dr Rashid Amjad, the late Dr A. R. Kemal and Dr Sarfraz K. Qureshi, former directors of PIDE, for involving him in research. One of the highlights of the proceedings was the Allama Iqbal lecture, delivered by Dr Yannos Papantoniou, former economy and finance minister of Greece.
The lecture was titled “Saving the euro: A test for globalisation”. Delivering the lecture, Dr Papantoniou said that the sovereign debt crisis, originating in the Eurozone immediately after the eruption of the global financial crash, highlights the dangers surrounding the globalisation process. The integration of product and financial markets, and services to a lesser extent, coupled with enormous technological progress in communications and transport has diffused growth to regions and continents, which were left behind previously.
However, the downside of this process is that national control over economic policy has been significantly diminished, even vanished for small economies, while intricate problems have emerged for international economic governance.
Professor M Ali Khan of the Johns Hopkins University, USA on “The economics in the economics of climate change” focused on the issues relating to the economics of climate change from the viewpoint of welfare economics. He also touched on the considerations that transcend the narrow bounds of economic theory and spill over to those delineated by recent political and ethical theorising. Once the externality is corrected, global warming presents no novel issues of the distribution of economic welfare between generations that are not already inherent in other investment choices.
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