Development Strategy for Pakistan

Economic planning is of such recent origin in Pakistan that,up to now, it has necessarily been ad hoc in character. The problems ofthe present and immediate future have always appeared so pressing to theplanners that, aside from hopeful compound-interest projections to thenext generation and occasional evasive reference to the advantages of a"mixed" economy, there has been little in the way of a philosophy orlong-run strategy of economic development that one could attribute tothe planning authorities. This is not at all surprising when one recallsthat the First Five Year Plan was not officially approved until morethan one-third of the plan period had passed. The final version had tobe in part a rationalization of what had already occurred. Even theSecond Plan was ready only on the eve of the beginning of the planperiod and the final revised version did not appear until 15 monthslater.