India, China and Pakistan

• In today’s globalised world, where geographical boundaries are slowly becoming meaningless, it is important for neighbouring countries in the developing world to understand the development strategies being pursued by their neighbours.
• This is more so because they share the relatively limited economic space in world markets.
• In this unit, we will compare India’s developmental experiences with two of its important and strategic neighbours — Pakistan and China.
• World Development Report 2005, The World Bank, published by Oxford University Press, New York
• Websites: www.stats.gov.cn, www.statpak.gov.pk, www.un.org, www.ilo.org, www.planningcommission.nic.in, www.dgft.delhi.nic.in
• Pakistan: National Human Development Report 2003, United Nations Development Programme, Second Impression 2004
• Labour Market Indicators, 3rd Edition, International Labour Organisation, Geneva
• After studying this chapter, the learners will figure out comparative trends in various economic and human development indicators of India and its neighbours, China and Pakistan.
• The learners will also assess the strategies that these countries have adopted to reach their present state of development.
• In the preceding units, we studied the developmental experience of India in detail.
• We also studied the kind of policies India adopted, which had varying impacts in different sectors.
• Over the last two decades or so, the economic transformation that is taking place in different countries across the world, partly because of the process of globalisation, has both short as well as long-term implications for each country, including India.
• Nations have been primarily trying to adopt various means which will strengthen their own domestic economies.
• To this effect, they are forming regional and global economic groupings such as the S A A R C, European Union, ASEAN, G-8, G-20, BRICS etc.
• Massive floods took a heavy toll on agriculture and infrastructure while energy crisis coupled with steep decline in foreign direct investment is soaking up business activity during 2010-11.
• Though the data on international poverty line for Pakistan is quite healthy, scholars using the official data of Pakistan indicate rising poverty there.
• Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings mostly came from remittances from Pakistani workers in the Middle-east and the exports of highly volatile agricultural products; there was also growing dependence on foreign loans on the one hand and increasing difficulty in paying back the loans on the other.
• When there was a good harvest, the economy was in good condition, when it was not, the economic indicators showed stagnation or negative trends.
• Compared to 1980s, the growth rate of GDP and its sectoral constituents have fallen in the 1990s.
• India has performed relatively well vis-a-vis other developing countries in terms of economic growth, but its human development indicators are among the worst in the world.
• There is a general perception going around in India that there is sudden increase in dumping of Chinese goods into India which will have implications for manufacturing sector in India and also that we do not engage ourselves in trading with our neighbouring nations.
• As reported in the Pakistan Annual Plan for the year 2011-12, various factors contribute to slow growth of the Pakistan economy.
• The reasons for the slow-down of growth and re-emergence of poverty in Pakistan’s economy, as scholars put it, are agricultural growth and food supply situation were based not on an institutionalised process of technical change but on good harvest.
• The proportion of poor in 1960s was more than 40 per cent which declined to 25 per cent in 1980s and started rising again in 1990s.
• When reforms were made in agriculture, it brought prosperity to a vast number of poor people and created conditions for the subsequent phenomenal growth in rural industries and built up a strong support base for more reforms.
• Scholars argue that in Pakistan the reform process led to worsening of all the economic indicators.
• The growth of the agriculture sector, which employs the largest proportion of workforce in all the three countries, has declined in the last two decades.
• India, China and Pakistan have performed differently in some of the select indicators of human development.
• China is moving ahead of India and Pakistan in many indicators such as income indicator GDP per capita, proportion of population below poverty line or health indicators such as mortality rates, access to sanitation, literacy, life expectancy or malnourishment.
• Neither of these two countries have been able to save women from maternal mortality.
• China’s growth is mainly contributed by the manufacturing sector and India’s growth by service sector.
• In the industrial sector, China has maintained a double-digit growth rate whereas for India and Pakistan growth rate has declined.
• In 2013, the proportion of workforce in the service sector was 28, 39 and 42 per cent in India, China and Pakistan respectively.
• Pakistan is ahead of India in reducing proportion of people below poverty line and also performs better in education, sanitation and access to water.
• The service sector contributes more to GDP and emerges as a prospective employer.
• During 1980-2013, Pakistan has shown deceleration in all the three sectors.
• In the 1980s, Pakistan was faster in shifting its workforce to the service sector than India and China.
• There is also an increasing eagerness on the parts of various nations to try and understand the developmental processes pursued by their neighbouring nations as it allows them to better comprehend their own strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis their neighbours.
• In the unfolding process of globalisation, this is particularly considered essential by developing countries as they face competition not only from developed nations but also amongst themselves in the relatively limited economic space enjoyed by the developing world.
• The population growth is highest in Pakistan, followed by India and China.