ISLAMABAD: Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtiar has said that due to the prudent economic policies of the government, Pakistan’s large scale manufacturing (LSM) sector has witnessed historical growth of 12.2 percent this year. Addressing a seminar titled “Investment, Industrialisation, and Exports: Harmonizing Sectoral Efforts for Growth” on Thursday, the minister said that the government has introduced SME policy for promotion of small and medium sized business in the country. Bakhtiar said the local production of auto parts in the country has increased up to 45 percent as a result of Auto Policy. He said the contribution of industrial production in GDP is 14 percent. Similarly, local manufacturing of mobiles has resulted in production of 22.12 million phones in Pakistan within the first year of regime introduction. He also highlighted the salient features of National SME Policy to provide much needed support to SMEs countrywide. While explaining the core reason of economic meltdown, he said that early deindustrialization in Pakistan because of incoherent economic policies of previous governments led towards a declined manufacturing base which has proved detrimental to job creation in the country over the years. He emphasised, “With growing population and 64 percent of the young population base below the age of 30 years, we need to increase the GDP share of the manufacturing sector from 14 percent to 25 percent to create employment opportunities for our youth.” The minister said, “Our main focus while developing new policy is job-creation and productivity-enhancement which will help in improving economic growth and social stability in Pakistan.” Online
