World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) does a detailed study of a list of around 800 household and nonhousehold products to compare real purchasing power for trans-national income comparison program (ICP). The latest ICP findings conclude that Pakistan's per capita income is US$4,450.00, just slightly below India's US$4,735.00
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| ICP Based GDP Per Capita. Source: World Bank |
At US$4,450 per capita, Pakistan's PPP GDP works out to US$788 billion for 2011, and more than a trillion US dollars now.
The results of an earlier ICP program for 2005 and 2006 released by Asian Development Bank in 2009 concluded that Pakistan's per capita income was HK$ 13,528. It reported India’s per capita as HK $12,090.
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| Price Level Index Rankings. Source: World Bank |
The ICP program uses Price Level Index (PLI) as an indicator of cost of living in a country. It defines PLI as the ratio of a PPP (purchasing power parity) to a corresponding exchange rate. An index over 100 means prices are higher on average than in the world, and one less than 100 means prices are relatively lower. Pakistan's PLI of 28.2 ranks it at 176, just above the last-ranked Egypt's PLI of 27.2 at 177. India's PLI of 32.4 ranks it at 127.
23 economies are showing a PLI of 50 or below. The cheapest economies are Egypt, Pakistan, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Lao People's Democratic Republic, with indices ranging from 35 to 40.
The most expensive economies in GDP terms are Switzerland, Norway, Bermuda, Australia and Denmark, with indices ranging from 210 to 185. The United States ranked 25th in the world, lower than most other high-income economies, including France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
Here are some of the other major findings of World Bank ICP 2011:
1. The six largest middle income economies – China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico – account for 32.3 percent of world GDP, whereas the 6 largest high income economies – United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and Italy – account for 32.9 percent.
2. Asia and the Pacific, including China and India, accounts for 30 percent of world GDP, Eurostat-OECD 54 percent, Latin America 5.5 percent (excluding Mexico, which participates in the OECD and Argentina, which did not participate in the ICP 2011), Africa and Western Asia about 4.5 percent each.
3. China and India make up two-thirds of the Asia and the Pacific economy, excluding Japan and South Korea, which are part of the OECD comparison.
4. Russia accounts for more than 70 percent of the CIS, and Brazil for 56 percent of Latin America.
5. South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria account for about half of the African economy.
Last week, another survey done by Cato Institute found that Pakistan fares better than its neighbors on world misery index. Back in 1960s, distinguished American economist Arthur Okun defined misery index as sum of inflation and unemployment rates. America's high misery index was cited by candidate Jimmy Carter as a reason to elect him president in his 1976 presidential race against President Gerald R. Ford. The Cato Institute has now revived it by adding interest rates to the sum of inflation and unemployment rates and subtracting per capita GDP growth rate from it.
Pakistan (score 21.9) at 28 ranks below Iran (score 61.6) at 2 and India (score 25.6) at 19 on world misery index rankings for 2013 compiled by Washington's Cato Institute. Other nations worse off than Pakistan on the list include Serbia, Argentina, Jamaica, Egypt, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Greece, Macedonia, Palestine, Turkey, Cyprus, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Jordan, Ukraine, Peru, Uruguay, Portugal and Barbados. Indonesia (score 21.6) at 29 is only slightly better off than Pakistan.
Earlier this year, Economist Intelligence Unit's latest Worldwide Cost of Living survey revealed that Pakistan’s Karachi is the second cheapest city of the world in 2014 while India’s Mumbai is the cheapest. The top 10 cheapest cities include Mumbai, Karachi, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Damascus, Algiers, Bucharest, Panama City, Jeddah and Riyadh in that order, according to EIU.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Pakistan's Per Capita Income
Pakistan Fares Better Than Neighbors on World Misery Index
Pakistan's Underground Economy
India Pakistan Comparison
Pakistan Economic History\
Pakistan's Expected Demographic Dividend
I realize that we were 550 billion in PPP a few years back but this does still come off as a surprise. Given that the source is reliable, however, I am pleasantly happy. At that rate, we should hit 1 trillion within next 5 years
ReplyDeleteSMC: "I realize that we were 550 billion in PPP a few years back but this does still come off as a surprise. Given that the source is reliable, however, I am pleasantly happy. At that rate, we should hit 1 trillion within next 5 years"
ReplyDeleteWorld Bank data is for 2011. Using the same PPP factor as 2011, Pakistani is already over a trillion dollar economy.
Tax by mobile:
ReplyDeleteIn 2011 it was revealed according to official figures that out of Pakistan’s 1.7 million taxpayers, around 1.6 million paid about Rs21,000 each as income tax every year.
Income tax collection from Pakistan’s 1.6 million taxpayers was Rs87.662 billion out of the total collection of Rs373.685 billion from 1.706 million taxpayers during 2010. In 2013 the number of NTN (National Tax Number) holders was around 3.3 million of a population of around 180 million. Out of the total NTN holders about only 1.8 million tax returns and salary statements were filed in 2012.
At around nine percent, Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is among the lowest in the world. Veritable widening of the tax net remains a tantalising dream for governments in the country. Besides our collective national psyche of demanding rights without paying our dues, door-to-door corruption in tax collection entities, fear of being entangled in a complicated taxation system, unfair assessments/rejection of self-assessments, real and perceived hardships once being snared in the tax net are some of the other general reasons that discourage people from joining the tax net.
It may sound clichéd but it’s time we came up with new taxation ideas. Mobile phones could be just the right tool for that. From money transfer to virtual office functions mobile phones are already proving to be more than a communication phenomenon. They may also form good part of our tax collection system.
We could start with our retail sector. According to data by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics the retail and wholesale sector was worth Rs3.6 trillion -- around 18 percent of GDP -- in 2011-12 with around two million retail outlets in a country of 180 million people in comparison with around 15 million outlets for around 1.2 billion people in India. The reason for such a high ratio of retail outlets in Pakistan could be the heavier reliance of people on self-employment in the absence of consistent and large-scale industrial progress.
Unfortunately a large number of the retail outlet owners are reportedly non-taxpayers, involved in power theft and overcharging. In big urban centres like Karachi and Lahore most, if not all, retailers are forced to pay daily extortion and bribe money to various politico-extremist-criminal gangs and the police besides other government departments and utility service providers.
In Karachi even a roadside pushcart owner in an average commercial area is stated to be paying around Rs100 a day in extortion/bribe, of course a deplorable fact but then law and order is a separate subject and needs countrywide political will to be resolved. However, what becomes evident from this situation is that the retailers financially are in a position to be part of a wider tax net and mobile phones could be a clean and convenient channel to facilitate them.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-247426-Tax-by-mobile
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101626562
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting fact Iran GDP has crashed to $219 billion nominal. This is because of currency devaluation. Since Iran is oil producing country it should go up once sanctions are lifted.
ReplyDelete2005 & 2006
ReplyDeletePakistan HK$ 13528 & India HK$ 12090 or Pakistan was about 12% higher.
After 5-6 years in 2011
Pakistan US$ 4450 & India US$ 4735 or Pakistan was 6% lower!
In a span of half a decade we fell behind by 18%!!
Is that right?
Yes but no matter how interesting this looks the fact is that half of Pakistan's population lives in poverty and joblessness and desperation among the country's youth is increasing day by day! The youth of Pakistan no longer respects the country and has lost all hope in the country's future......
ReplyDeleteWhat do you have to say about this Mr Riaz Haq?
Hasan: "The youth of Pakistan no longer respects the country and has lost all hope in the country's future......"
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I see many stories of upward mobility among Pakistani youth. Data from various independent credible sources shows that Pak youths are better educated than even in the history of Pakistan and they live better than ever in the history of Pakistan.
GeoTV ran a series of anecdotes recently called "Zara Sochieye" which illustrated it with many hard-working upwardly-mobile youths.
Read the following:
http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/08/upwardly-mobile-pakistan-on-66th.html
Mr Haq I dont think u understand the plight of this nation... Nowadays even graduates from UET are unable to find work! This desperation is sucking life out of this nation
DeleteHasan: "Nowadays even graduates from UET are unable to find work!"
ReplyDeleteIt's because GDP is not growing fast enough to absorb all new entrants in the job market, but those with the right skills can still find work.
One area that is growing is freelance work online where Pakistan is the third most popular country to outsource to.
http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/03/pakistan-third-most-popular-online.html
Also, the new 3G-4G licensing and several new energy and infrastructure projects should create more opportunities in Pakistan.
World Bank now says Pakistan's poor population living on less than $1.25 a day is down from 35 million to 5 million, one-seventh of the earlier estimates. Here's World Bank's Center for Global Dev (CDG report on major downward revision in world poverty figures based on ICP 2011 PPP GDP estimates:
ReplyDeleteWhat lies behind the dramatic changes in calculated GDP and poverty rates? A big factor may be that the national inflation rates used to convert incomes into 2005 PPP dollars in the last few years appear to be higher than the rate of inflation reflected in the baskets of goods and services measured by the two rounds of ICP surveys: Pakistan’s PPP conversion rate for GDP was 19.1 Rupees to the dollar in 2005 and 24.4 in 2011 — a gentle increase of 28 percent. The Consumer Price Index in Pakistan has gone up 102 percent over that same period. That might reflect changing or inadequate ICP commodity baskets or consumption data in one or both years, or mismeasurement of prices by Pakistan’s statistical agencies. But whatever the reason, it appears to apply to a lot of countries. Very few places saw PPP conversion rates climb close to or more than CPIs between 2005 and 2011, which is why poverty rates based on the 2011 PPP numbers tend to be lower.
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CORRECTIONS AND UPDATE: In checking our methodology (prompted by Laurence Chandy, to whom thanks), we realize that we underestimated the impact of the new PPP lines on poverty due to two mistakes in the computer code underlying the original version of this post: we used 2010 CPI figures where we meant to use 2011, and conversely, we used 2011 population figures where we meant to use 2010. An explanation of the error and the changed numbers are presented below, along with access to the original estimates and all code. We’ve used strikethrough and square brackets in the text to show where language and numbers have changed, the pictures refer to the corrected data. We’ve also taken the opportunity to add some final thoughts on the discussion in an update below.
On Tuesday night, the International Comparison Project released the latest purchasing power parity numbers for the world’s economies. The vast majority of the planet slept right on as if nothing had happened.* And they were right. But the new numbers still suggest the size and distribution of world income looks considerably different than we previously thought. The World Bank will produce new official estimates in the coming days, but our preliminary estimates suggest the share of people in the developing world living below the absolute poverty line of $1.25 per day in 2010 “fell” by nearly half, from about 19.7 percent to 11.2 8.9, thanks to the revisions.
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The estimated number of $1.25 poor in India in 2010 falls from 396 393 million to 148 102 million, thanks to the revisions. The number of poor people in Nigeria goes from 88 87 to 60 51 million. And pretty much every country is sloping downward — using the same national survey data the new ICP numbers suggest much lower rates of absolute poverty.
-----------
DETAILS OF CORRECTION: In the original version of this blog we presented numbers that missed out a year of CPI data (2011) in the calculation of the adjustments caused by the update. This error led to numbers that underestimated the potential impact of the revisions on the 2005 $1.25 PPP poverty. We also used 2011 population numbers rather than 2010 numbers. These errors were pointed out by Laurence Chandy of Brookings (who has his own post on the new PPPs and poverty), and we are very grateful to him. It is a sign of how many poor people are bunched near the 2005 $1.25 PPP line that missing one year of CPI data can have such a dramatic impact on the numbers...
http://www.cgdev.org/blog/global-absolute-poverty-fell-almost-half-tuesday
World Bank now says Pakistan's poor population living on less than $1.25 a day is down from 35 million to 5 million, one-seventh of the earlier estimates. Here's World Bank's Center for Global Dev (CDG) report on major downward revision in world poverty figures based on ICP 2011 PPP GDP estimates:
ReplyDeleteWhat lies behind the dramatic changes in calculated GDP and poverty rates? A big factor may be that the national inflation rates used to convert incomes into 2005 PPP dollars in the last few years appear to be higher than the rate of inflation reflected in the baskets of goods and services measured by the two rounds of ICP surveys: Pakistan’s PPP conversion rate for GDP was 19.1 Rupees to the dollar in 2005 and 24.4 in 2011 — a gentle increase of 28 percent. The Consumer Price Index in Pakistan has gone up 102 percent over that same period. That might reflect changing or inadequate ICP commodity baskets or consumption data in one or both years, or mismeasurement of prices by Pakistan’s statistical agencies. But whatever the reason, it appears to apply to a lot of countries. Very few places saw PPP conversion rates climb close to or more than CPIs between 2005 and 2011, which is why poverty rates based on the 2011 PPP numbers tend to be lower.
----------
CORRECTIONS AND UPDATE: In checking our methodology (prompted by Laurence Chandy, to whom thanks), we realize that we underestimated the impact of the new PPP lines on poverty due to two mistakes in the computer code underlying the original version of this post: we used 2010 CPI figures where we meant to use 2011, and conversely, we used 2011 population figures where we meant to use 2010. An explanation of the error and the changed numbers are presented below, along with access to the original estimates and all code. We’ve used strikethrough and square brackets in the text to show where language and numbers have changed, the pictures refer to the corrected data. We’ve also taken the opportunity to add some final thoughts on the discussion in an update below.
On Tuesday night, the International Comparison Project released the latest purchasing power parity numbers for the world’s economies. The vast majority of the planet slept right on as if nothing had happened.* And they were right. But the new numbers still suggest the size and distribution of world income looks considerably different than we previously thought. The World Bank will produce new official estimates in the coming days, but our preliminary estimates suggest the share of people in the developing world living below the absolute poverty line of $1.25 per day in 2010 “fell” by nearly half, from about 19.7 percent to 11.2 8.9, thanks to the revisions.
---------
The estimated number of $1.25 poor in India in 2010 falls from 396 393 million to 148 102 million, thanks to the revisions. The number of poor people in Nigeria goes from 88 87 to 60 51 million. And pretty much every country is sloping downward — using the same national survey data the new ICP numbers suggest much lower rates of absolute poverty.
-----------
DETAILS OF CORRECTION: In the original version of this blog we presented numbers that missed out a year of CPI data (2011) in the calculation of the adjustments caused by the update. This error led to numbers that underestimated the potential impact of the revisions on the 2005 $1.25 PPP poverty. We also used 2011 population numbers rather than 2010 numbers. These errors were pointed out by Laurence Chandy of Brookings (who has his own post on the new PPPs and poverty), and we are very grateful to him. It is a sign of how many poor people are bunched near the 2005 $1.25 PPP line that missing one year of CPI data can have such a dramatic impact on the numbers...
http://www.cgdev.org/blog/global-absolute-poverty-fell-almost-half-tuesday