Pakistan In Focus - PAKISTAN'S ECONOMIC TIMES - New 5-year plan faces hard choices.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government faces a tough choice between implementing an economic stabilisation programme that will lead to creating slightly over 5 million jobs or giving economic stimulus to fulfill promise of creating 10 million promised jobs. In case it picks up the option of economic stabilisation, the average economic growth rate by the end of the PTI government's tenure will be equal to 4.8percent that the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had achieved in its five-year tenure.

Despite achieving 4.8percent growth rate, the PML-N government had missed all the macroeconomic targets set in 11th Five-Year plan 2013-18. The Ministry of Planning and Development is in the process of finalising the 12th Five Year Plan (2019-23) while keeping in mind the PTI's economic priorities. It also wants to avoid the path that the PML-N government had taken. "As a result of the PML-N's economic policies, Pakistan was on the brink of default," said Federal Minister for Planning and Development Khusro Bakhtiar on Wednesday while explaining his government's economic priorities to a group of journalists.

"The core objective of 12th Five Year Plan is to create 10 million jobs in 5 years and enhance...