He said that Pakistan has added almost $12 billion to external debt during the last two years, as against $2.6 billion in the previous seven years, which shows our reckless approach in piling up external liabilities. He said with the increase in external debt, the debt servicing liability is mounting leaving hardly anything to spend on improving the country's physical and human infrastructure and reducing poverty.

Pakistan's total cultivated area is 52.4 million acres where wheat (22 million acres), cotton (7.4 million acres), rice (6.9 million acres) and sugarcane (2.6 million acres) are the major crops and contribute 7 percent of GDP. According to reports, so far 0.1 million acres of cotton crop have already been wiped out in KP and Punjab and flooding is expected to now enter Sindh as well. "While we await release of official numbers by the Ministry of Agriculture, our theoretical calculations are based on per acre losses where we estimate that loss of crop on every 0.1 million acres would lower annual production of cotton by 1.4 percent, sugarcane by 3.8 percent and rice by 1.5 percent," he said.

The PPP-led government increased power tariff by 63.6 percent during last two and a half years. This was stated by sources in the Ministry of Water and Power while presenting an alarming picture before the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources to compel it to make the entire gas available at Kunar/Pasakhi gas field for power generation... "Natural gas from Kunar/Pasakhi gas field has been identified as a major intervention to make power tariff more affordable," the Ministry of Water and Power said, adding that, at present, electricity cost on fuel oil stands at Rs 11.37 per Kwh, diesel at Rs 15.88 per Kwh, and natural gas at Rs 2.86 per Kwh.

Wheat production in Pakistan was recorded at 23.5 million tons in the March harvest. Historically wheat consumption in the country has hovered around 18 to 20 million tons for the year. When wheat was procured from farmers, price was set at Rs950 per maund. Add to that the carrying cost of storage, interest payments and transportation costs, thats another 20 percent. At the time, the price in Pakistan was non-competitive in the international market but with the recent spike, wheat held up in make shift storage is ripe to be exported.

Due to the poor performance of major crops, Pakistan missed agriculture growth target, which grew by 2 percent, against the set target of 3.8 percent, according to Economic Survey 2009-10. The Survey said that the sector showed positive growth only because of 4.1 percent growth in livestock sector, which contributed 53.2 percent to agricultural value-added-more than the combined contribution of major and minor crops (43.9 percent)... Rice was sown at 2,883,000 hectares, 2.7 percent less than last year's area under the crop. Its production was 6,883,000 tons, which was 1.0 percent less than last year. Wheat was cultivated on an area of 9,042,000 hectares, showing a decrease of 0.04 percent over last year's area of 9,046,000 ectares, but its estimated production was 23.864 million tons against target of 25 million tons, which was 0.7 percent less than last year.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has said that the economic reform programme, initiated under the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) standby arrangement, should continue even after the country ends its dependency on the global donor agency.

In the biggest stock market of the country, which made headlines by becoming the worldís best performing bourse in 2002 and 2008, merely 135,000 people, or less than 0.01 percent of the population, actively invest in shares, a fund manager revealed on Wednesday.

The devastation caused by the recent floods in Pakistan has compounded the infrastructure deficiencies of the country as the government added only 580km roads during two years (2008/10) against 5,052km roads in 2006/07 alone.