October 5, 2017

Corruption Stays No. 1 for Three Consecutive Years: Vapors PMLN’s ‘Good Governance’ as Health, Education, and Labor Stalls Business Growth

Index Component
Pakistan
Rank/137
Rank/138
Rank/140
2017-18
2016-17
2015-16
Global Competitiveness Index (2017-2018)
115
122
126
A.
Basic requirements
114
126
131
1.
Institutions
90
111
119
2.
Infrastructure
110
116
117
3.
Macroeconomic environment
106
116
128
4.
Health and primary education
129
128
127
B.
Efficiency enhancers
104
113
107
5.
Higher education and training
120
123
124
6.
Goods market efficiency
107
117
116
7.
Labor market efficiency
128
129
132
8.
Financial market development
96
107
99
9.
Technological readiness
111
119
113
10
Market size
28
29
28
C.
Innovation and sophistication
72
85
89
11.
Business sophistication
81
95
86
12.
Innovation
60
75
89


Pakistan’s Global Competitiveness 2017-18

Pakistan managed to tonic its overall competitiveness ranking by seven (7) places – to 115th from prior year’s 122nd in a recent report touted as Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 2017-2018 released by World Economic Forum (WEC).

International independent body tracks Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) of an up to 140-150 countries every year – measuring the various world economies on the basis of 12-pillars and 3-subindices – basic requirements, efficiency enhancers, and innovation and sophistication factors.

This is for the first time in the past few years that Pakistan managed to skirt the ignominy of being included in bottom-20 GCI nations. The ranking is however still by far poor (down 24) since 2007 when the country soared to 91st place in a dictator’s rule.

Political and economic analysts believe that the ongoing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) floored the improvement in Pakistan’s infrastructure development – helping leading country in war on terror to climb another six (6) placed.

Twenty-fourth largest economy of the world followed up with these rankings in later years – 2008 (N/A); 2009 (101st); 2010 (101st); 2011 (123rd); 2012 (118th); 2013 (124th); 2014 (133rd); 2015 (129th); 2016 (126th); 2017 (122nd); and 2018 (115th).

PMLN Dismal Performance in Health and primary education, Higher education and training, and Labor market efficiency

However despite PMLN’s large-mouthed claims to taking revolutionary steps and bringing structural reforms in education and health sectors – Pakistan’s GCI index in Health and primary education, Higher education and training, and Labor market efficiency failed to improve.

All the areas in 4th pillar: Health and primary education including malaria, tuberculosis, HIV prevalence, their business impacts, infant mortality, life expectancy, quality of primary education, and primary education enrollment rate did not performed enough to elevate Pakistan’s global ranking and could realize to scale only one (1) place up.

Same has been the case with 5th pillar: Higher education and training including secondary education enrollment rate, tertiary education enrollment rate, quality of education system, quality of math and science education, quality of management schools, internet access in schools, local availability of specialized training services, and extent of staff training – all performed below average and pushed country’s global competitiveness three (3) places down.

The progress in the 7th pillar: Labor market efficiency has been mediocre – improved 0ne (1) place only – as well to cope with the international competitiveness in areas such as cooperation in labor-employer relations, flexibility of wages determination, hiring and firing practices, redundancy costs, effect of taxation on incentives to work, pay and productivity, reliance on professional management, country capacity to entertain talent, country capacity to attract talent, and female participation in the labor force.

Competitiveness Comparison with other South-Asian Countries

Furthermore, aching to the PMLN’s regime, the country’ GCI also trailed to other South-Asian countries – Bangladesh (99th, up 7), Sri Lanka (85th, down 14), Nepal (88th, up 10), Bhutan (82nd, up 15), and India (40th, down 1); the WEC annual report re-counted.

Even so, the international independent body classifies all the regional economies at stage-1 (factor-driven) except for Sri Lanka (stage 2: efficiency driven) and Bhutan (transition from stage 1 to stage 2: toward efficiency driven).

Included in low-income economies, Pakistan is however identified as one of the three most competitive economies along with Vietnam and Nigeria on the basis of 10-years average growth rate from 2007 to 2016.

Corruption-Corruption-Corruption

The faux proclamations to actively and effectively govern the country’s economy by the ruling party of Pakistan also littered as corruption lingers to constantly pose a serious challenge to the economy of Pakistan.

The data compiled below through last ten World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Surveys reveal that corruption has atrociously dominated as the major thorny factor that is meddling with the economic growth of in Pakistan.


Instead of dropping down in the chart from #2 in 2014-15; corruption has rather climbed and sustained the top position (#1) for last three consecutive years.

Transparency International in its Corruption Perception Index 2016, released earlier this year, had ranked Pakistan at 116th place with a score of 32 out of 100 – representing the ‘high’ level of corruption in the country.

The CPI scores of Pakistan for the earlier years were not promising at all either – 2015 (30); 2014 (29); 2013 (28); and 2012 (27).

And corruption, being the apex problematic area for three year in a row, coupled with tax rates or inefficient bureaucracy, inevitably led toward the government instability despite decline in crime and theft in 2017-2018.

According to the GCI 2017-18, Pakistan is only country in South-Asia where ‘Corruption’ has been the #1 problematic factor for last three years whereas there are overall only 10-countries in the world that have achieved this milestone – Cambodia, Cameroon, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Mexico, Moldova, Pakistan, and Paraguay.