This was termed as an "in-depth and investigative document focusing minutely on such aspects of the Sindh developmental perspective as overview of the Sindh Economy (Executive Summary), Gross Provincial Product, Agriculture, Industry and Large Scale Manufacturing, Provincial Financing and Provincial Government Policies."
The project team comprised Professor Mohammad Janjua, Project Director and Professor Institute of Business Management, Former Deputy Governor and Chief Economist, State Bank of Pakistan. According to the Public Affairs Section, IoBM, the objective of the Sindh Conference, organised by IoBM in collaboration with HEC and IBA Sukkur, was to provide a platform to academicians, researchers and professionals to brainstorm on Sindh's socio-economic challenges.
Its purpose was to review Sindh's economic performance, industrialisation, HRD, education, urban-rural linkages, environment and energy. It aimed at providing opportunities to share knowledge and foster research and development in this regard.
Besides, HEC and IBA Sukkur, participants from the Sindh Government, State Bank of Pakistan, FAST, Hamdard University, University of Karachi, Balochistan University, KPT, Thar Coal Development Board, Yousuf Adil and Company and participants from abroad were present in the ceremony. Shahjehan S. Karim, President, IoBM, was also present on this occasion.
Dr Javaid R. Laghari, Chairman, Higher Education Commission (HEC) urged Pakistani universities to orient their teaching and research programmes to cater to local, provincial and national needs. Acknowledging IoBM in establishing CRIS, he urged that centre to link its research and training programmes with private and public sector institution towards socio-economic development.
Dr S.M. Qureshi, Chairman Chartered Inspection and Evaluation Committee, emphasised on rural-urban linkages, quality of research and managerial excellence in educational and research pursuits. Talib Karim, Executive Director, Academics IoBM, in his Issue Paper said that a major weakness of our national statistical system is its lack of coverage of firm level data.
That is one of the most important causes of the stagnation of factory productivity, not just labour productivity but also capital efficiency. Dr Javed Ansari, Dean, CBM, made an earnest appeal for home-grown, not imported developmental policies in such potential areas of development as investment, research, educational management expertise and mutually beneficial rural-urban linkages.
As many as six technical sessions addressed and recorded recommendations on Sindh's core socio-economic issues and were captioned and chaired as follows: `Economic Performance of Sindh' by Ashraf Janjua; `Industrialisation and Corporate Strategy' by Dr Shahida Wizarat, Senior Fellow and HoD Economics, IoBM; `Human Resource Development' by Mahtab Rashidi, Ex Secretary, Education,
Sindh; `Education' by Dr Mehtab S. Karim, Senior Research Advisor, PRC, Professor School of Public Policy George Mason University, Washington; `Urban-Rural Linkages' by Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqi, Ex Chief Secretary, Sindh; and `Environment and Energy' by Hussain Ali, Secretary Environment, Government of Sindh.