Pakistan is among ten countries of the Asian region whose rural development has been showing upward trend in the recent years. Shahghai Daily, quoting Professor Mahajan who represents the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin in the US, stated that rural top ten nation in the Asian region included Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and Egypt.

The GDP of these ten countries, totalling $15 trillion, includes a large informal economy which often does not get reflected in GDP calculations. It is in the context of these changes that Vijay Mahajan's book, "Rise of Rural Consumers in Developing Countries," gives a timely insight into the strategies and tactics which can enable companies to harness the enormous opportunity.

The rural opportunity has undoubtedly been created through the reduction in extreme poverty, with China contributing the most to the reduction. For example, between 1990 and 2010, China brought down the percentage of poor people from 60 percent to 9 percent; with remittances spurring rural consumption. China's 274 million internal migrants sent back US $50 billion in 2014, India's 336 million migrants remit between US $14-20 billion to their villages.

Copyright Independent News Pakistan, 2017