A ceremony to launch recently published books with titles’ Development for an Equitable society’ and ‘ Political Economy of Bad Governance’, written by Jamil Nasir, was held in the auditorium of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) today on 11th of December, 2021. The ceremony was arranged by the Research and Development Department of LCCI. A large number of representatives of the business community, civil servants, and academia participated. in the ceremony. Mr. Rehman Aziz Chan , President of the LCCI, welcomed the guests and the participants of the ceremony. He lauded the efforts of his team which took the initiative to introduce the said books to the business community. He congratulated the author on writing books on a dry subject in an easy and readable style. Mr. Jamil Nasir while narrating his experience as to what made him write these books highlighted that journey starts with his exposure to the outside world when he had opportunity to study in UK as Chevening Fellow and in USA at Columbia University as World Bank scholar. He said that through multiple articles included in the said books, he has presented results and insights of various empirical papers and studies undertaken on the themes of development and economic policy at global level in a simple manner so people who possess even rudimentary knowledge of economics and development get familiarized with the issues holding us back from development. He emphasised that without investing in health and education of the people, sustainable development is not possible. Mr. Shahid Kardar, Vice-Chancellor of BNU gave critique of both the books and lauded the efforts of the author to combine multiple themes of development like economic growth, inequality, taxation, corruption, political economy, poverty alleviation, and democracy etc. in his books. He emphasized that software side of development should be given more priority in public policy formulation and spending as we are traditionally stuck up in the bricks and mortar model of development which has not delivered.
Mr. Nadeem Ul Haque, Vice Chancellor of PIDE who was the chief guest on the occasion emphasized in his address the centrality of economic growth, excellence, productivity, and training in right set of skills for development. He said that long-term growth is possible only through development of better state architecture which is capable of policy and institutional innovation. For a country to develop, policy, state , and society must become more thoughtful and inquiring, he argued. Commenting on the books, Mr. Haque said that the books are very useful and should be used for class room debates and for developing a deeper and more thoughtful economic policy making in the country. The books are full of ideas and insights and should be read by all. The ceremony ended on note of thanks to the vice-president of the LCCI.