Unlike the new provincial government in Sindh, the coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Punjab has yet to put together and articulate its economic development agenda.

Currently, it finds itself pre-occupied with the wholesale administrative reshuffle at the provincial and district levels to flush out officials considered loyal to the previous rulers.

Management of the province’s wheat market for ensuring availability of flour to the people at the officially fixed price is another immediate issue occupying the minds of the elected government. Little wonder then that many do not expect the PML-N led coalition to spell out its economic policy and assemble its development agenda over the next several weeks – at least, not until the next provincial budget.

The government too does not appear to be in a hurry and is taking its time to settle down and sort out the issues related to the distribution of the cabinet portfolios between the coalition partners before it comes out with its economic strategy.

“How can you expect a week old government to take stock of the existing economic situation of the province and formulate its own strategy?,” argues a senior provincial government official. Others insist that the recent changes in the provincial administrative set-up have shifted the focus of the bureaucracy from the economy and the ongoing governance reforms for the time being.

“The new officials replacing the previous ones would also need some time before they could understand and focus their attention on the twin issues of economy and governance reforms,” says an official of the provincial planning & development (P&D) department. He says the new government is not expected to bring about any major changes in the existing policies, but would certainly want to revisit the province’s development priorities and change them according to its own needs and vision.

Punjab — which contributes approximately 60 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), has grown significantly fast at an average annual rate of above eight per cent since FY2003, with its Gross Provincial Product (GPP) peaking to 9.35 per cent in 2005.

The kind of growth achieved in the province and its consistency to pursue governance reforms in the province to improve public service delivery and create substantial fiscal space for greater spending on social sector actually endeared the financial and economic managers of the previous government to the multilateral donors like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank.

On the basis of the considerably high growth rate, the Federal Bureau of Statistics (BoS) estimated that per capita income rose 67 per cent to $990 in FY2007 from $601 in FY2003 at the current factor cost. An estimated 3.5 million new jobs were estimated to have been created in the province in three years preceding 2006 while the incidence of poverty was claimed to have dropped down by 11 per cent from above 32 per cent in FY2002. It was also claimed that the incidence of poverty in Punjab would drop to a single digit figure by 2015.

Though the critics of the development priorities of the previous government did not agree with its claims of the trickle-down effect of the high economic growth, they agreed that the growth figures were impressive. “The growth achieved during the years between 2003 and 2007 was impressive. But it could have been much higher, and it could be used to improve the lot of the rural and urban poor living across the province,” argues an economic expert, who has been working with the provincial government for several years now. He feels that Punjab could have grown at 10 per cent or more had the previous government used the opportunity to restructure the productive sectors – industry and agriculture.

“Punjab has huge potential for growth. But this potential has to be unlocked to put it on the rails of sustainable economic growth for a longer period,” says a private consultant who has worked with the provincial government on governance reforms. “The new government can unlock this potential provided it focuses its attention on agriculture and industry. That will not only boost growth but also create employment opportunities and reduce the incidence of poverty,” he argues.

Unlocking the ‘untapped’ growth potential of agriculture and industry in Punjab means huge investment in human resource, infrastructure – education, health, roads, power, transport, etc –, and improvement in the working of the government. With the federal tax revenue collection falling short of the target for this fiscal in many years, some fear that the provincial government would have lesser resources to spare for the maintenance of the physical and social infrastructure built in the recent years and undertake new projects that are needed to facilitate industry and agriculture both for increasing productivity and achieve a higher growth.

But a leading economic expert, who has been working for the multilateral donors, does not agree with this assessment. “Money is no issue. I can assure you on this count. The donors are ready to give the province any amount of money for any project. But for that the government would have to assure the donors that it means business and would not scrap any project — and add to the already huge throw-forward of incomplete projects in the province — just because it was initiated by its preceding government,” he says.