page_title: Shaukat Aziz
section_title: Economic policy
hierarchical_section_title: Shaukat Aziz / Prime Minister / Economic policy
context_page_description: Shaukat Aziz is a Pakistani former banker and financier who served as 17th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 20 August 2004 to 15 November 2007, as well as the a Finance Minister of Pakistan from 6 November 1999 to 15 November 2007. During his childhood he studied at St Patrick's High School, Karachi. Aziz graduated from the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, and joined the corporate staff of the CitiBank Pakistan in 1969. He served in various countries' governments as CitiBank financier, and became executive vice-president of Citibank in 1999. After accepting a personal request by General Pervez Musharraf, Aziz returned to Pakistan from the United States to assume the charge of the Finance Ministry as its finance minister while taking control of the country's economy. In 2004, Aziz was nominated by the Musharraf loyalist government led by Pakistan Muslim League, to the position of Prime Minister after the resignation of Zafarullah Khan Jamali on 6 June 2004.
  Aziz's macroeconomics policies oversaw political stability and economic progress in Pakistan, subsequently ending the "era of stagflation" in 2001.
context_section_description: Under Shaukat Aziz's government, the country's national economic growth improved at the rate range by 6.4% to 9.0% a year. All revenue collection targets were met on time for the first time in the history of Pakistan, and allocation for development was increased by about 40%. However, this economic success is attributed largely to debt reduction and securing of the billion dollars worth US aid to Pakistan in return for the support in the US-led war on terror. Moreover, despite a series of internal and external distresses, economic situation of Pakistan improved significantly and reserves increased to US$10.7bn on 30 June 2004 as compared to US$1.2bn October 1999. Exchange Rate became stable and predictable; the inflation rate dropped to 3.5% last 3 years as against 11–12% in 1990.
  After taking control of the economy, Aziz aggressively promoted the privatisation, deregulation and economic liberalisation programme and open the large heavy mechanical industries, petroleum companies, electropetroleum and chemical enterprises and state-owned corporations to private sectors. His tenure as finance minister and prime minister, the agriculture production and construction well increased, whilst aggressively and forcefully implementing his policies to liberalise the trade, and eliminated the non-tariff barriers. Under his regime, the maximum bound tariffs were brought down to high as 300% to 25% whilst the applied tariff averages falls in the range of 5% to 10%.
  The GDP growth which was at 3.9% in October 1999, stood between 6.6%—9% and successfully privatised all state-owned corporations and state enterprises before completing his term. However, Aziz's strategy failed deal with underlying problems deeply in country's economy. The global financial crises in 2008 led the sharp dropped in country's economy while acute electricity shortage in the country revealed the incompetence by the Peoples Party's government, but also the failure of his government to developed the necessary energy infrastructure on time.
  Political economist, however, gave other side of story by arguing the fact that his policies were not aimed at alleviating poverty as he seldom offered relief to the poor sections of the society. Shaukat Aziz is roundly criticized for his policy of downsizing in the public sector and disintegrating the effects of nationalization policies of Benazir Bhutto as early as the 1990s but Aziz defended as he points out that his policies made these institutions viable while they were on the verge of collapse. Political economist dr. S. Akbar Zaidi argues that his policies mastered Pakistan's economy but such indicators are misleading and unsustainable because his policies do not examine or explain the particular, perplexing economy of Pakistan.
caption: Pakistan's GDP rate since the period of nationalisation in the 1970s until the economic boom in 2004–08.