Stagnating Pakistan-Iran Relations

Re: # 58: faisal, 60% of US GDP is domestic spending driven not export driven. You need a balance. India`s growth 8% y/y and soon to hit 9+% going by last quarters 9.2% growth is being fueled by domestic investment not through exports. This will happen for a long time to come. so rest assured..there is not as much risk to foreign demand. What woudl happen if US hits a recurrive solw down driving demand for chinese goods down?

just to put things in perspective, thailand with a population of 70mn will export as much as india will:

http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=26345

Export growth in 2006 projected at nearly 20 per cent

BANGKOK, Dec 2 (TNA) - Thailand`s exports this year are projected to grow and meet the target of 17.5 per cent with total value of US$130.37 billion, according to Commerce Minister Krirkkrai Jirapaet.

Re: # 41

I am sure paki mega firms are a mega success [for some reason, it`s also a mega secret] ... so how much money do you make per year by shipping out your farm products... I am no researcher in high-flying world of paki mega firms - so you tell us... :)

taikonaut,

your numbers are incorrect. india`s total export (merchandise +services) will amount to $140-150bn this year. china`s export in comparison are expected to reach $960bn. to catch up with china, india`s export growth rate will have to exceed china`s export growth rate by 10% for the next 20 years. reality however is that india is running a current account deficit unlike china which is accumalating record surpluses.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LA6QVG1.htm

China exports expected to reach $960B

NOV. 10 7:15 A.M. ET The Commerce Ministry said Friday that China`s exports are expected to reach $960 billion this year, boosting its politically sensitive trade surplus to about $150 billion, a state news agency reported.

taikonaut,

your numbers are incorrect. india`s total export (merchandise +services) will amount to $140-150bn this year. china`s export in comparison are expected to reach $960bn. to catch up with china, india`s export growth rate will have to exceed china`s export growth rate by 10% for the next 20 years. reality however is that india is running a current account deficit unlike china which is accumalating record surpluses.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LA6QVG1.htm

China exports expected to reach $960B

NOV. 10 7:15 A.M. ET The Commerce Ministry said Friday that China`s exports are expected to reach $960 billion this year, boosting its politically sensitive trade surplus to about $150 billion, a state news agency reported.

Re: # 52; give it time man...production is transient. Innovation is not.

Re: # 50 Faisal sez

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regions of Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh despite surplus food in the FCI godowns

...Our food output in 2004-05 has declined to 204.6 million tonnes from 212 million tonnes in 2003-04. The scenario in 2005-06 has not been encouraging as the output has not exceeded 209 million tonnes. Given the burgeoning population, the present food production will not be enough to feed our growing population of over 1100 million, if the entire half-fed people are fully fed.

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See the commie policies of Hindia won`t work.

#48 by arjun2 on December 2, 2006 1:01pm PT

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: if the billions of $$ india earns through, among other things, designing chips is munshigiri, why have you been massive failures at even that?

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Failure? or trying to diversify our services to the West. Yeah sure we can`t compete with Hindia`s $15 billion IT bijnus. However Hindia can`t beat China`s $300 billion manufacturing sector. You know why?

Hindians can`t compete with China. Manufacturing is not their core competency. So what do Hindians do to compete with China? Make monkey faces to Pakistan. hahahha.

as i said before, this article is very idiotic - only fit to be published on a website like chowk. reality is that relationship between iran and pak is normal.

hot off the wires:

http://www.geo.tv/geonews/details.asp?id=152189&newscategory=pakistan

Musharraf, Ahmadinejad discuss gas price on phone

ISLAMABAD: President General Pervez Musharraf on Saturday talked to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on telephone and discussed measures to expedite the US $ 7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.

The two leaders agreed to remove impediments in the 2600 km gas pipeline project that aims at supplying natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and then onwards to India.

meanwhile real situation india with regards to farm production and hunger. i can see a ``we are the world`` type concert fairly soon:

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=3&id=163237&usrsess=1

seven million children in India die of hunger every year. It was earlier reported that 63 per cent of children go to bed hungry, and 53 per cent of them suffer from chronic malnutrition. In 2002, a large number of people died of starvation and malnutrition in the poverty-stricken regions of Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh despite surplus food in the FCI godowns

...Our food output in 2004-05 has declined to 204.6 million tonnes from 212 million tonnes in 2003-04. The scenario in 2005-06 has not been encouraging as the output has not exceeded 209 million tonnes. Given the burgeoning population, the present food production will not be enough to feed our growing population of over 1100 million, if the entire half-fed people are fully fed.

It is reported that India will face a food shortage of about 28 million tonnes by 2025 when the country will need a minimum of at least 338 million tonnes of food for feeding a population of 1690 million.

this is how impotent iranian leadership is. it cant even pay back baghul may churee macaca leadership. in contrast, pakistan - recepient of millions of dollars in annual u.s. aid -actually voted in favour of iran in this resolution. and this is precisely why i favour pakistan maintaining an ambiguous stance on iran. iranian leadership must be made to realise that there will be a price to pay if acts in ways that might be to the detriment of pak. any leadership that cant distinguish between its friends and enemies deserves to be dicked around.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/archive/archive?ArchiveId=15434

India`s IAEA vote upsets Iran

Iran`s ambassador in New Delhi has met a top Indian foreign affairs official to convey his government`s deep disappointment at India`s decision to vote against Tehran on a UN atomic agency resolution.

The meeting between Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and Iranian Ambassador Siyavash Zargar Yaghoubi took place on Tuesday, as Iran threatened to review trade deals with countries that voted against it at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

#47 by taikonaut on December 2, 2006 12:52pm PT



BTW this report ignores the loss of traditional irrigation rivers thanks to the blockade by Hindia.

Satluj, Ravi, Bias are completely gone. Chenab is available only half the time.


Not to worry...when kashmir banegas Pakistan you`ll get the rivers back and your super secret mega agriculturists will register with forbes...

BTW: if the billions of $$ india earns through, among other things, designing chips is munshigiri, why have you been massive failures at even that?

PM calls for investment in IT sector

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, March 4: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday asked the businessmen to look beyond the traditional sectors of economy like textiles and start investing in ``knowledge based businesses`` like information technology (IT).

#40 by stuka on December 2, 2006 12:29pm PT

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World Bank study compares Pakistani and Indian Punjabs

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There are many aspects to this study. Some are valid and others invalid.

Crop yield from W. Punjab midlands exceeds E. Punjab. The figure gets skewed only when you add arid areas of Pothohar and Southern W. Punjab.

If you want real comparison, then add the yeilds of E. Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal together and you will surely see that the figures change.

The idea is simple. Mega farms in W. Punjab can afford material and equipment that small landowners can`t. As the attached study points out, E. Punjabi farmers are much more dependent on taxpayer support and bail out. Again that makes sense. Small farmers can`t compete in free market.

Your quoted report shows higher yield of Cotton in W. Punjab. Again this is indicative of the fact that arid areas are better suited for Cotton.

BTW this report ignores the loss of traditional irrigation rivers thanks to the blockade by Hindia.

Satluj, Ravi, Bias are completely gone. Chenab is available only half the time. So you Hindi Bindis choke us, strangle us, and then laugh at us. And if we get angry you accuse us of terrorism. Wow! Talk about fairness.

No wonder Hindi Bindis are completely lost to the religiosity and ethnic prejudices. What else you could expect from dirt poor Biharis and their decedents.



For those of you who are ready to come out of your prejudiced jaundiced cocoon, here is an interesting and relatively unbiased analysis.


A tale of two Punjabs
Ravian

The two Punjabs adopted the green revolution technology for wheat, rice and cotton crops at around the same time (mid-1960s) and experienced similar phases of its intensification over the next 30 years. The results are fascinating and tell us much about the way different policies affect farmers’ performance

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-1-2003_pg3_4


Since the partition of 1947, agriculture in the Indian and Pakistani Punjabs has evolved in different institutional and policy settings. The Indian Punjab has less unequal land distribution, higher education levels and a weaker feudal tradition than the Pakistani Punjab. These factors and the stronger tradition of parliamentary democracy has given the Indian Punjabi farmer greater clout in designing pro-farmer policies compared to his “cousins” across the border.

How have these differences affected agricultural performance in the two Punjabs? The answer, according to serious research*, is not so obvious.

The two Punjabs adopted the green revolution technology for wheat, rice and cotton crops at around the same time (mid-1960s) and experienced similar phases of its intensification over the next 30 years. The results are fascinating and tell us much about the way different policies affect farmers’ performance.

The most common way to measure performance is in terms of growth in output per acre. On this measure, the Indian Punjab led Pakistani Punjab in wheat (3.6 per cent annual growth versus 2.2 per cent) and rice (4.1 per cent vs. 0) but was outperformed by the latter in cotton (1.6 per cent vs. the latter’s 3.6 per cent).

As a result of this growth, at the end of the green revolution period (mid-1990s), the Indian Punjabi farmer produced 3643 kg per hectare of wheat which was nearly twice his Pakistani counterpart’s output of 1902 kg per hectare. In rice, the Indian Punjabi farmer’s output of 3426 kg per hectare was nearly three times the Pakistani Punjabi farmer’s output of 1215 kg per hectare. To be fair, Pakistani Punjabi farmer’s poor performance in rice is because he was switching to low yield but high value basmati rice.

It turns out that the difference in growth in the two Punjabs is largely because the Indian farmers use more inputs than their Pakistani counterparts. On average, the Indian Punjabi farmer applied 156 kg of fertilizer per hectare, twice Pakistani Punjabi farmer’s 86 kg’s per hectare. Also, the Indian farmer used more machinery (41 hours per hectare vs. 15). But there was little difference in access to irrigation (91 per cent of total land under irrigation vs. 86 per cent). Indian Punjabi farmers appear to use more tube wells (104 per 1000 hectares vs. 26) but this may be illusory because the Pakistani tube wells are generally larger.

This tale of agricultural productivity differences in the two Punjabs doesn’t end there. All we have learnt so far is that you get more output if you apply more inputs. This, as we have seen earlier (The story of economic growth, Daily Times, November 15, 02), is only a partial story. A far more interesting and meaningful comparison of the two Punjabs is in terms of total factor productivity i.e. how well do the two Punjabi farmers perform controlling input use.

A cricket analogy would help. A batsman may score well compared to another if he uses a better quality bat but that may tell you more about the bat than the batsman. The real test is controlling the performance for the same quality of the bat. This is what total factor productivity does.

Total factor productivity growth on the two Punjab farms is calculated by subtracting input growth from total output growth. In the Indian Punjab, output and input growth in the 30 year green revolution period was five per cent and three per cent respectively giving total factor productivity growth of 1.9 per cent. In the case of Pakistan’s Punjab, with output and input growth rates of 3.2 and 1.9 per cent, respectively, total factor productivity growth was 1.5 per cent. The difference of a mere 0.4 per cent is not much to write home about!

We can get further insight into farm performance by breaking down the 30 year green revolution period into three clearly identified sub-periods i.e. the years of introduction of the new technology (1966-74), the years of input intensification (1975-84) and the years of maturity (1985-1994). Total factor productivity growth in the three sub-periods in the Indian Punjab was 1.3, 1.8 and 1.5 per cent per annum respectively. In the Pakistani Punjab the corresponding growth rates are 0, 1.4 and 2.9 per cent. Thus in the mature stage of the green revolution technology, Pakistani Punjabi farmers were rapidly catching up with their eastern “cousins”.

One explanation for this pattern of total factor productivity growth is that the green revolution technology was knowledge intensive so it was adopted more quickly by the better educated Indian Punjabi farmers that had access to better research and extension services. The Pakistani Punjabis were slow to respond because of poorer education and research and extension services, but when information became available and they learnt to manage the risks associated with technological change, they responded with enthusiasm.

The other explanation is that Indian Punjabi farmers have enjoyed much higher intensity of input use throughout the green revolution period because they are politically better organised and are able to extract large water and fertilizer subsidies from the government. In contrast, the Pakistani Punjabi farmers have had to make do with their own resources and therefore were slower to catch up. But then, unlike their Indian counterparts, they are less of a burden on the government budget.

The third explanation is the outstanding performance of cotton, mung daal and livestock in Pakistan’s Punjab in the final period. Pakistan has been pro-active in promoting long staple cotton for export that has responded well to pesticides while India has focused on low yielding short staple varieties for home consumption.

Surely, there are costs to the environment that need to be taken into account while calculating the benefits of intensive cultivation that uses a lot of water and chemicals in the form of pesticides and fertilizer.

Indeed there are. In Pakistan’s Punjab, for example, half the productivity gain in agriculture associated with the green revolution technology is cancelled out due to the detrimental effects of water pollution. And because Indian Punjabi farmers use water and chemicals more intensively than Pakistani Punjabi farmers, netting out the detrimental effects may well eradicate any remaining differences in the performance of the two Punjabi farmers.

*By Ringku Murgai, Derek Byerlee (both work the World Bank) and Mubarik Ali (at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center).

#31 by taikonaut on December 2, 2006 10:15am PT


See Bindis are stuck in infosys. Why don`t you produce from the Bindis potato land the likes of Mega Agriculturalists like Noons, Tiwanas, Makhdums, Pagaras?


Yup...those super secret agiculturists who grow the super secret crops that gave them the super secret wealth that`s so secret it doesn`t register on the forbes list....

And all paki comments about Indian IT are sour grapes...you tries your damndest to get on the IT bandwagon and have been miserable failures with exports of only 72 million $/yr...having failed miserably to get on the IT bandwagon, you`re now telling Indians how that`s really clerical work and agriculture is where the real action is...

maybe you should tel your prez and your PM...they keep asking for investment in IT...

#34 by mohar11 on December 2, 2006 10:57am PT


Who is this nut-case taikonut guy?... What`s this about ``Mega Agriculturalists`` and ``Mega-farms`` is he talking about?.


The mega farms where they grow whatever he`s smoking? i`ve heard the afghans are going to beat them at that too...

#35 by bjkumar on December 2, 2006 10:58am PT


This dear turkey Taiko’s stubbornness


Stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds is commendable...stubborness in believing something contrary to reality is called self-delusion...

so takeout guy sure is stubborn...but so are pakis..they stubbornly chose to live in pakiworld, the make-believe world where paki delusions are facts...