Energy Minister Hammad Azhar Thursday said that infrastructure development played a key role in reviving Pakistan’s economy. The minister said this during his keynote remarks at the opening panel discussion for the third annual Infra4Dev Conference.
Expressing his viewpoint he said that conventional wisdom of the public sector crowding out private investment is oversimplified. In emerging economies like Pakistan with areas unserved by conventional markets, state-led infrastructure not only has a key role in economic development but also in crises like COVID-19.
The minister gave a historical context that Pakistan has one of the largest irrigation infrastructures in the world, “and certainly larger than some of our neighboring countries, that’s one of the reasons we have much lesser levels of extreme poverty”.
He further said, “in the face of the pandemic we utilized state-led development models to revive our economy. We risked the prospect of the pandemic turning into an all-out recession in Pakistan while being in the IMF program. We ramped up the releases and size of our development plans and development budget in the center and provinces. The private sector followed the government’s footsteps and the growth rate rose above the pre-COVID levels for two consecutive years now. The impact of infrastructure development playing role in reviving our economy could clearly be seen”.
The Infrastructure for Development Conference series (#Infra4Dev) is an initiative of the World Bank’s Infrastructure Vice-Presidency, aiming to promote dialogue and exchange between leading-edge economic researchers and the wider community of policymakers and practitioners on leveraging infrastructure for development.
The theme for this year’s conference is understanding how various forms of infrastructure contribute to improving economic performance. The World Bank and the International Growth Centre, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, are partnering for the third annual #Infra4Dev Conference.
