What can we learn from China’s Success?
The Chinese economy is one of the most emerging world economies with an average 7.9pc growth rate in a few decades. In addition, China contributes 17pc of global GDP, top exporter of laptops and mobile phones. Moreover, China is the only country that expanded by 6.4pc in GDP in the 3Q of FY2020.
If we look a few decades back, we will know that China was not as prosperous as now. Chinese people were suffering from diseases, poverty, malnutrition, drug addiction, and even civil wars. What exactly does China do to curb poverty & other menaces? What can we learn from China? First, we have to understand the secret of China’s economic success. Second, I’ll explain what and how we can learn from China?
1. Chinese Skilled Labour
China is the world’s most populous country. In the early 70s, Chinese leaders taught that they should work in a way that their population will become their asset. China worked hard in the skill development of its youth through technical and vocational training. Not only the Chinese government but Chinese industries joined hand in hand to polish the skills of their youth. Industries start providing internships, to youth and youth become more productive.
Skilled labour can be defined as your experience becomes your asset, and you become your company’s asset.
After training, they become skilled enough to earn money. In Pakistan, our poor think we should send our children to school when there has already been high unemployment? Indeed, when we all believe that higher education in Pakistan is a scam, then why one will waste his crucial asset to delay unemployment for a few years? Second, in Pakistan, higher education institutions are segregated from the industries; therefore, there is skill mismatch, which leads to unemployment, opposite to China.
2. Clusters Development
China worked to build clusters. Imagine a grocery store example; if you found all the necessary items from your nearby grocery store, will you travel a large to go to a big city? Certainly not. The same thing China did. The Chinese government created special economic zones (SEZs) to provide all the necessary things for infrastructure development and other works. It helped companies to save their travel cost and time.
Furthermore, when infrastructure and connectivity increases, it generates more opportunities. You may question here that many other countries like India have SEZs but are not as developed? Of course, many other countries have special economic zones, but these countries are not as much developed. The reason is, these countries, including IndoPak, don’t have migration controls. Our citizens are still living in a myth that life is in cities. Cities are overpopulated, overcrowded!
China controlled this mass migration through Huku System. When a family migrates from one place to another, they lose health insurance and other basic facilities. Furthermore, the Chinese government encourages small businesses, which help to grow large businesses. So why will one travel to a big city if he finds employment and other facilities nearby?
3. Government work for business
The Chinese government deals with other countries, provide them with heavy loans, and in return, they hire Chinese companies for infrastructure development. In Singapore or CPEC, China is following the same model. Moreover, the government ensures the growth of Chinese companies. According to the Global Fortune list of the world’s top 500 companies, 119 are from China. There’s hardly any company from Pakistan on the list.
What can we learn from China?
According to a report unleashing the potential of Youth in Pakistan, Pakistan currently has a 64pc population under 30 years of age. If the government joins industries to provide practical and technical training to youth, our youth will be more productive in the future. It will favour minimizing unemployment, and the income level of citizens will improve. Moreover, we will be at least self-sufficient in the production of necessary commodities. It will ease the pressure on imports, and it will strengthen our BOP dramatically. Second, the government should support local and small businesses so that our youth can generate employment for others.
And finally, there must be business security in the country to flourish the self business. Unfortunately, there is no business security in our country due to political and regional instability. Investors think they are no longer in a safe haven in Pakistan, and they flee. Moreover, the current government cannot provide shelter to the business class, creating mafias.
Ashar Awan is a Student at School of Economics, Quaid_I_Azam University Islamabad. He is a freelance writer and independent researcher
He tweets at ; @Ashar_Awan17
