MEDIA

Pak terror economy billed at Rs 264 bn
The Times of India, February 16, 2004

NEW DELHI: Pakistan's "terror-economy" accounts for Rs 264 billion, or 6.6 per cent, of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), a Mumbai-based think tank said in a report Monday.

Pakistan's "conflict economy" accounts for more than 10 per cent of its GDP, the report contended.

In what it described as a "comprehensive assessment of the cost of conflict between India and Pakistan", the Strategic Foresight Group said it had not only taken into account military expenditure and loss of trade, but also factors like economic costs, socio-political damage, diplomatic costs, human costs and even the "implications of the nuking of Mumbai and Karachi".

In the forward to the study, conducted by Ilmas Futehally and Semu Bhatt, former Pakistani foreign secretary Niaz Naik said: "It is the first time that we have such all encompassing information and analysis in one place on the implications of adversarial relations between India and Pakistan."

Excerpts from the report, released here Monday did not refer to the basis on which it had predicated its conclusions.

Some of the main observations of the report:

  • India and Pakistan have followed a "swing" model of relations, with the pendulum swings from conflict in May 1998 to peace in February 1999, from conflict in May 1999 to peace in November 2001, from conflict in December 2001 to peace in April 2003 - and further peace in January 2004.
  • The Siachen conflict alone will cost India Rs 72 billion and Pakistan Rs 18 billion in the next five years. Together, they will lose about 1,500 soldiers in the next five years in Siachen without fighting a war.
  • If troops are mobilised again in future on the pattern of 2002, it will cost India 0.46 per cent of GDP and Pakistan 2.25 per cent of GDP.
  • Pakistan incurs equal amount of expenditure on military and development (3.8 per cent of GDP), while India spends 2.7 per cent of GDP on military and 6.2 per cent on development.
  • Pakistan's GTP (gross terror-economy product) is Rs 264 billion or 6.6 percent of its GDP.
  • Pakistan's Conflict Economy is more than 10 percent of GDP. The Conflict Economy includes GTP and military expenditure.
  • Kashmir's GTP is estimated to be Rs 3.5 billion.
  • Pakistan's jehadi forces are expected to increase from 200,000 at present to 300,000 at the end of the decade and the army from 620,000 at present to 646,000 at the end of the decade.
  • The victims of the Kashmir conflict during 1988-2000 were 85 per cent Muslims and 11 per cent Hindus.
  • If the Kashmir conflict continues, 45,000 people every year would be forced into hospitals with psychiatric complaints during the next five years.
  • Kashmir lost 27 million tourists from 1989-02 leading to revenue loss of Rs 165 billion.

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