Nationalization Under Bhutto

Nationalisation policy and economic development in Zulfiqar ali bhutto era in Pakistan

The Decade of Sixties

The initial conditions of this period can be summarized as follows: 

* The foundations of the industrial sector were laid.

* Administrative machinery of government as well as vital institutions such as the central bank were in place.

* Agriculture remained the dominant sector of the economy; but its growth had stagnated.

* There was a rapid expansion in the large scale manufacturing sector.

* The rate of population growth outpaced that of agricultural growth, resulting in a decline in per capita food availability.

* Per capita income was stagnant.

* There were regulations on investment,  imports and exports, prices, foreign exchange and many other sectors of the economy.

Development strategy during much of the Sixties continued to be heavily biased towards promoting industrial  growth in Pakistan. Tax Holidays, availability of the industrial inputs below world market prices

and schemes like Export Bonus Scheme (EBS) helped the industry and it grows two folded.

The stagnant growth of the agriculture in the 50’s resulted not only in the food shortage but a barrier to the inputs availability to the Industrial sector.

The shift in emphasis in government policy coincided with the advent of the green revolution. In addition to heavily subsidizing the high-tech varieties of the agriculture inputs, it also accompanied by a greater spread of agricultural mechanization, mainly in terms of tube-wells and tractors. These factors contributed to a marked improvement in the growth performance of the agricultural sector: the average annual growth rate jumped to 6 % in the second half of the Sixties, up from 1.8 percent in the corresponding period of the Fifties. 

But the success stories in Industrial and Agriculture sectors was not accompanied by an improvement in the living standards of the majority of...