Finance Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar chaired a meeting with a World Bank team led by Country Director, Patchamuthu Illangovan and senior officials of the Statistics Division on Wednesday. Former Vice President, World Bank, Shahid Javed Burki was also present.
The meeting discussed the mechanism and methodologies in place in the country for data gathering and compilation. The Chief Statistician briefed the meeting on the existing data gathering mechanism and informed that the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has an elaborate set up which is updated from time to time in collaboration with international development partners, with a view to adopt international best practices.
Mr. Shahid Javed Burki shared the experiences of different countries around the world and highlighted the significance of a robust data gathering mechanism, for public policy making. He said that it was important to learn from the experiences of other countries and adopt the latest processes and techniques.
Country Director World Bank stated that being partners in development the Bank has in the past helped various reform initiatives of the government of Pakistan and it would continue to do so for any future reform and restructuring of processes aimed at increasing their efficiency and efficacy.
Finance Minister stated that the present government had boldly taken on various economic reforms and the process will continue in the future as well. Quoting the example of introduction of the Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method of estimating poverty, he said that it was need of the time and the government took a bold step in adopting the new methodology. He said that the government would follow a similar approach and continue to improve the processes and practices in the public sector, in line with international best practices. He said that PBS should use the global expertise of the World Bank and make assessment of its processes with a view to eliminate any existing gaps.
Senior officials of Finance, Economic Affairs and Statistics Divisions/Pakistan Bureau of Statistics participated in the meeting.
