Year 2021 will replace negative expectations with positive ones.

Byline: Khalil Ahmed

Interview with Mr Barkatullah Lone - Chairman, GB International Economic Forum

Profile:

Mr. Barkatullah Lone is Chairman of GB International Economic Forum and a renowned Economist of Pakistan. He is a Chartered Management Accountant and Chartered Certified Accountant from UK, Chartered Global Management Accountant from the USA, Gold Medalist Management Accountant and Public Finance Accountant from Pakistan plus he holds master's degree in Economics and Law from Karachi University. He has been associated with the corporate sector in Finance and Audit profession at various positions (CFO/GM Finance/Chief Internal Auditor/Finance and Accounts Manager) for the last many years.

He has rendered his professional Advisory/Business Management/Finance/Audit/Accounting services in Pakistan as well as abroad. Simultaneous with his Professional Job career, he has been appearing at various Local and International TV channels as Economic and Financial Analyst for the last eight years. His Articles on Economy and Finance are also published in various reputed global magazines.

Currently, Mr. Barkatullah is associated with a Conglomerate Large Corporate Organization (Expertise Contracting Co Limited) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has been playing a pivotal role in streamlining the Business Processes and uplifting the Corporate Governance of this organization for the last two years. Mr. Barkatullah has vast experience of System Development and establishing Internal Controls therefore he is targeting to accomplish it in his existing organization in the next one year.

PAKISTAN and GULF ECONOMIST had an exclusive conversation with Mr. Barkatullah Lone about the impact of coronavirus on the economic growth as well as the current state of the economy and the industry. Following are the excerpts of the conversation:

In terms of GDP growth, year 2020 has been the worst year for Pakistan in the last around twenty-five years having the least growth of lesser than 1%. We can't blame Covid-19 only for this too poor economic performance instead the government's in-efficiency has also played a pivotal role in the massive slowdown of economy. When PTI took over in the year 2018, Pakistan's GDP growth was 5.8% which has shrunk to below 1% which has exposed the PTI government badly. Year 2020 has been horrible in terms of Inflation as the poor has suffered heavily due to hyperinflation not only in year 2020 but also from the day the current PTI...