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ISLAMABAD: The state-run Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) has urged the government to launch an urgent national savings drive through budgetary measures later this week to reverse a sharp decline in the country’s savings rate over the past three decades.
In a policy note issued ahead of the federal budget, PIDE said the drive should be launched immediately before the next crisis hits Pakistan, where national savings have fallen to just Rs6 out of every Rs100 of income, contributing to an investment crisis.
“Pakistan’s gross domestic savings have collapsed from 17.4pc of GDP in 1992 to just 6.4pc in 2024, the weakest in a generation and far below every regional peer,” wrote PIDE’s Professor of Economics Dr S.M. Naeem Nawaz and Research Economist Wajid Islam.
The policy note, titled “Mobilising Domestic Savings: A Finance Bill and Institutional Reform Agenda for Pakistan”, urged that the Finance Bill 2026-27 should launch a targeted National Savings Mobilisation Package before the country’s shrinking savings base triggers another external financing crisis.
