Pakistan launches 5-year economic plan to achieve 6% growth, push exports to $60B

ISLAMABAD

Pakistan on Tuesday launched its five-year economic plan to achieve 6% GDP growth and push exports to $60 billion in next five years.

The "Uraan Pakistan" (Rising Pakistan), a homegrown five-year National Economic Transformation Plan, was launched by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during a ceremony held in Islamabad.

The ceremony was also attended by federal ministers and representatives from all four provinces.

Speaking on the occasion, Premier Sharif said that during the last nine months his government took steps to bring the country out of severe economic crisis with focus on reforms in all sectors.

"Under this plan, we will focus on growing our industry, commerce, information technology, trade, investment and find new markets for our products across world," Sharif said.

Briefing the participants, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said the plan proposed to achieve 6% GDP growth and push exports to $60 billion annually in coming five year, which is now around $30 billion.

Under the propose plan, the government will also reduce the electricity prices to provide cheap power facility to industry and create thousands of job across the country.

"We will bring investors and will provide them best facilities to invest in Pakistan," Aurangzeb said.

He added that during the next five years, the government will encourage privatization and involve private sector to move alongside the government.

Pakistan has already decided to privatize Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and out-sourced Islamabad International Airport.

Aurangzeb said that the key pillar of the plan is to achieve export-led growth in order to avoid boom-and-bust cycles in the economy.

The government will also promote green energy, install solar projects to produce thousands of megawatt electricity and provide it to industry and public on cheap price.

In September 2024, Pakistan secured a new $7 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is Pakistan’s 25th IMF program.

However, Premier Sharif said that this will be the last IMF program and now his country will come out of all economic crises.