Some Aspects of Undivided Pakistan's Economic Growth-A Retrospection

With the carving of Pakistan out of the Indian Sub-continent in 1947, there followed a tide of 'rising expectations'. Aware of this, the government of Pakistan had been trying, since its early days, to achieve as high a rate of economic growth as possible through a policy of planned development. The first efforts at comprehensive planning were made in 1953 with the appointment of a Planning Board which with the help of a staff of foreign advisers drew up the First Five Year Plan (1955-60). By 1970, it completed the execution of three of its Five-Year Plans. In this context, studies relating to estimates of national income, analysis of its various facets, utilisation of Foreign Aid vis-a-vis the debt servicing problem, and social welfare are highly illuminating not only because of their providing the indices for the achievement over the years, but also because of their more important bearing on the future organisation of production and distribution.