REALISING THE AGRO-POTENTIAL‪?‬

Byline: SHAMSUL GHANI The last two years of Pakistan's history have been the years of economic policy deficit. The non-elected economic managers hired from outside kept themselves busy, most of the times in dealing with the IMF and in devising ways and means to dodge its dictates that were essentially anti-masses and growth-choking. Policy formulation and policy implementation were subjects the part-time economic managers got little time to focus on. In the earlier years, however, we often heard about the idea of structural shift from agriculture to industry that came from abroad, possibly from the proponents of market capitalism. The previous government showed some seriousness in making use of this foreign recipe, and ended up bringing down both agricultural and industrial outputs.