Drawing parallels between the development strategies of Korea and Pakistan, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal has said that implementation of development plans was imperative to ensure sustainable growth.
He was addressing a seminar on “Lessons from Korean Development” in which Korean delegates shared the development experience of their country with Pakistan.
The federal minister said that both the countries had devised development plan back in 1970, Korea performed well and succeeded while Pakistan remained behind, so there is learning for us to put our economy on growth trajectory.
He was of the view that each country followed its development path which was unique for that particular country. However, there were some general principals which could be borrowed to develop a subjective model for development.
“We need to find the way we could apply those models in our conditions,” he said and underlined the importance of proper implementation of strategies to achieve success.
Nothing could be successful without proper implementation as plans would remain just plans in books if not applied for development. He said that the Korean experts will share with us their success which would help us in developing the five year development plan and Vision 2025 adding that Pakistan will remain in touch with Korea and would have an active engagement with experts to help lead the country towards development and economic growth.
Speaking on the occasion, Ambassador of South Korea to Pakistan Song Jong Hawan said that Pakistan and Korea have several historic commonalities, as Korea was established in August 1948 and Pakistan in 1947.
Both the countries face issues with neighbouring countries and even several words in languages of both the countries are matching. He said that South Korea continued to grow at the growth rate of 8 percent percent for last 30 years as the country was successful in implementing its development plans.
On the occasion, Professor of Economics KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Sung Hee Jwa gave detailed lecture on Korean economic development during last 60 years.
In his detailed presentation, he said that it was important to have good vision of development but it is equally imperative to have know-how of how to achieve that vision. He was of the view that one of the imperatives for economic development was to get out of egalitarian policy regime and follow the dictum that “God help those who help themselves.”
“Be aware of being trapped in egalitarianism which can kill the economic dynamism of developing as well as developed economies,” he remarked.
He said that economic discrimination was necessary for economies to take off, clearing that economic discrimination means that better performing and successful firms should be given more opportunities adding that Korea followed this paradigm and achieved success. He also highlighted the importance of economic concentration which he said was imperative for economic growth. He said that Korea has taken several initiatives that led to growth including economic promotion development strategy, export promotion, promotion of heavy and chemical industries and turning of social development policy into growth policy.
In 1970, Korea followed the model of export growth leading to domestic investment to growth of jobs to SME sector and service sector growth that resulted in shared growth, he added.
Among others, the seminar was attended by economic policy makers, delegates from various institutions including Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) and officials of various ministries.
