Pak to be industrialised in 159 years

Pakistan will take 159 years to catch up with industrialised nations while India will achieve the target in 50 years, an affiliate of the World Bank says.

Pakistan, however, can reach the milestone by 2050 if it maintains an annual growth rate of 8.3 per cent or by 2100 if its growth rate is 4.9 per cent, says the Commission on Growth and Development.

The highest growth rate Pakistan has achieved in the last 10 years is 4.8 per cent at an average of 1.8 percent a year. Pakistan's per capita GDP in 2006 was $2,206.

India, with per capita GDP of $3,308, can catch up with the industrialised world in 50 years, the report says.

China, with a per capita GDP of $6,621 in 2006, can catch up with industrialised countries in 23 years.

In the last 10 years, China had an average growth rate of 8.3 per cent, with a maximum of 10.1 percent.

"Among Muslim nations, Malaysia is the closest to catch up with industrialised nations. It can reach this milestone in 35 years, followed by Iran, which can get there in 54 years. Egypt needs 118 years," Dawn quoted the report as saying Wednesday.

There are about 150 developing countries in the world. The 10 largest among them account for about 70 percent of developing countries' GDP, and the 25 largest countries for about 90 percent.

"The growth performance of these 25 countries has been uneven. Because industrialised countries' growth rate is about 2 per cent per capita, developing countries need to grow at much higher rates to catch up. Less than half have been able to reach this performance," the report says.

Since 1960, only six countries have grown faster than 3 per cent in per capita terms and 10 had growth rates below 2 percent.

"Because of the consistently improving economic performance of China and India, the share of developing countries in global GDP is increasing. The corollary is that the share of the US, Canada, Japan and the European Union has been declining since the 1980s - although these economic blocks together still account for 70 percent of the world's GDP," the report says.