India wanted to emulate Pak eco reforms in my tenure: Sharif

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India wanted to emulate Pak eco reforms in my tenure: Sharif

Lahore: Opposition PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said Pakistan was ahead of India in defence technology and economic reforms during his tenure as premier.
"Our nuclear deterrence was much better than that of India at that time," he told a group of journalists at an 'iftar' dinner he hosted here this evening.

Late Indian Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had wanted to emulate the economic policies of the erstwhile PML-N government because of their vibrant nature, Sharif claimed.

"During my tenure as prime minister in the 1990s, India was way behind Pakistan on the economic front. So much so that Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao asked me if he could send a team of economic experts to Pakistan to understand the mechanism that put Pakistan on the road to progress," he added.

Amidst speculation that the Saudi royal family may be involved in efforts to stymie the trial of former President Pervez Musharraf on charges of treason, Sharif said Saudi Arabia should not be dragged into Pakistan politics.

"I do not know about the official protocol given to former President Pervez Musharraf but we should not involve Saudi Arabia in our politics," he said in response to a question.

Sharif's suggestion took some by surprise as he and his family had been given granted immunity by Musharraf on the intervention of the Saudi royal family after a military coup in 1999.

He said Musharraf must be tried for treason and the controversial 17th amendment of the constitution which gives the President sweeping powers should be repealed. If the government has any agreement with Mushrraf, it could not be imposed on the nation, he said.

Criticising the Pakistan People's Party-led government, Sharif said its failure was turning out to be the failure of democracy in the country.

Sharif also suggested that the President, Prime Minister, Chief Ministers and Governors should have no role in appointing judges of superior courts. "They must be appointed after a public hearing," he said.

Bureau Report

India wanted to emulate Pak eco reforms in my tenure: Sharif
 

thakur_ritesh

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if at all what mr sharif says is true well then there is nothing wrong in learning from others at what they have been successful at and something that would benefit us at the end of the day. the interesting fact is even if we took our lessons from pakistan as claimed by mr sharif, india has sped past by leaps and bounds and has come to a stage where india and the prc are spoken of in the same breath as the next best thing to happen to this world in terms of economic growth when not long back india was never ever spoken of.

that aside, where we stand today has been a collective effort of various visionaries, and economic gurus who made sure that a near bankrupt country in 1991, today has made a very strong foundation for it self from where double digit growth rate figures, and a whole some growth program looks like a thing with in grasp and for that, mr sharif accolade has to go to those dedicated indians not to you or your team of economic experts.

there was a time when getting a phone connection was a trauma, today well over 400million indians have their own phone connections, india had one of the least educated populace today primary education has a reach of near 100% with the same targets being implemented for secondary education, back then getting a job and that too a secure one was a thing most could only dream off today with NREGA government is making sure no one goes unemployed, health related facilities back then were hardly ever accessible today health and related facilities are taken for granted and all provided free of cost. life since has changed a lot and that has been only possible through our hard work, mr sharif, it is we the indians who slog our asses day in and day out to make sure we out smart those predictions made by goldman sachs, and guess what, we have still done one better even when the world reels under the global economic slowdown.

as they say, success has many fathers but in this case mr sharif credit goes to only and only we the indians who implemented what they learnt, it was we who picked up and implemented, sir and that is what counts, but thanks a lot for those lessons imparted to our economic gurus or else we would have not been where we are today, thanks a lot again sir.
 

ajay_ijn

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It was during Kargil, when Nawaz Sharif was still the PM, Pakistan was almost under risk of going bankrupt similar to what happened last year, things became worse with Army takeover but Pak was rescued by IMF. both countries suffered economic sanctions of US & her allies in 1998. But India clearly had little effect of that while Pakistan almost crumbled.


yes we can learn and emulate Paks begging bowl reforms. India is definitely far behind pakistan as far as this concerned.

Sanctions imposed may severely cripple Pakistan's economy
http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19980531/15150244.html
May 31, 1998

LAHORE, May 30: After the nuclear tests and sanctions imposed by various countries, Pakistan's much weaker economy which is completely dependent on foreign aid is likely to be affected much more than India which has only over the last five years opened its door to foreign investments.

Already foreign exchange transactions have stopped, and all business halted on the Karachi Stock Exchange with the realisation that multilateral lenders and governments would pull out of the country under the mandatory sanctions.

Independent experts warned the economic and social cost of sanctions for Pakistan will be much greater than it is for India. ``The consequences of conducting nuclear tests, and that too by a developing country like Pakistan, will be much more devastating for the national economy and the region as well,'' commented Akmal Hussain, a leading economist.

Both the United States and Japan have frozen funds. The World Bank, which has to seek the approval of all its members, will stop aid to Pakistan, thatwill jeopardise a number of development projects that the Sharif government has launched. New foreign investments will be hard to come by and some of the foreign investors might actually pull out as they have done in India, Hussain warned.

With foreign exchange reserves sinking to a low one billion dollars, Pakistan is faced with a real danger of defaulting on payments the reason for President Tarrar's surprise decision to impose a state of emergency in Pakistan.

In a related development, the government has frozen all foreign currency accounts to avoid flight of capital. According to the country's finance minister, Sartaj Aziz, the foreign currency accounts will remain frozen till further orders and there will be no withdrawal of foreign currency.

However, the minister added the withdrawals could be made in Pakistani rupees. A freeze on foreign exchange deposits will continue but SBP has allowed deposit holders to draw their money in rupees at the rate of 46 rupees to the dollar, against an officialrate of 44.0500/44.4905. He told reporters that there will be no cut in the defence budget, instead it will be increased to meet the additional needs of the armed forces.

According to him, sanctions will not affect the 1.7 billion dollars foreign aid which is already cleared and in the pipeline. But the fresh aid of 1.3 billion dollars that the government had been expecting may be affected, the finance minister said.

The government will not face any major problem in the remaining period of the current fiscal year as it has enough resources to live without new multilateral and bilateral loans, the ministers claimed.

However, Imtiaz Alam, editor foreign affairs of `The News' newspaper warned that the ``Sharif government will be faced with the most difficult economic times. By taking the nuclear arms race to its next stage, the government has actually eroded the very purpose of its mandate economic revival.''

Within hours of Thursday's five tests, SBP shut banks for public dealing and suspended thelicenses of foreign exchange dealers. It withdrew the orders on Friday, allowing money changers to resume business. Bankers dismissed reports of queues forming at counters to withdraw dollars as exaggerated.

"There was no panic. It was business as usual as it could be in the given conditions," a foreign banker said. The Pakistani rupee slumped 1.95 paisa to 48.25 to the dollar in dull trade by Saturday's close of business.
 

Yusuf

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Anything Sharief says should be taken with a pinch of salt. During the time of Narasimha Rao, the east Asian tiger economies were far better models of economic development than a country whose greatest export at that time and still is Terrorism.

Nawaz also claims thst the present govt there is useless. Just like his own was back then. Hebis a typical politician. Don't waste time listening to him.
 

Energon

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I'm not really sure I know what Sharif is talking about. The economic "model" which was heavily influenced by the family of Nawaz Sharif turned out to be a categorical disaster for Pakistan. And that is exactly the sort of stuff India wanted to avoid. The liberalization scheme that was enacted in 1991 has very little to do with what Pakistan had adopted since the 50s.

As far as the nuclear deterrence issue is concerned, I can't say I know much either. Based on my very limited information on this topic and on the readings I have done so far, India didn't have much in common with Pakistan on this front and seemed to have every intention of growing in a completely different direction.
 

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