LAHORE - Former Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Salman Shah has predicted that Pakistan's GDP growth this year would be less 2 per cent, which according to him, is the lowest during the last one decade as the growth has been strangulated by the irrationally high interest rates and tight monetary policy of the State Bank of Pakistan. He also urged the government to focus on engineering sector to enhance the production of key manufacturing sector instead of giving priority only to the agriculture sector. He further said that the current political crisis would further deepen the economic instability in the country. He further said that the government should get rid of from the clutches of International Monetary Fund (IMF) instead of begging more 4.5 billion dollars loan even after obtaining 7.6 billion dollars. "I am unable to understand how this government will be able to repay this huge amount under the present economic scenario," he maintained. Dr Shah stated this while speaking at discussion on economic decline and remedial measures. The discussion was organised by Lahore Economic Journalists Association here at LCCI on Saturday. Dr Shah also said that Kalabagh Dam is the only solution of energy crisis and the government by constructing this dam could not only overcome energy crisis but also could enhance industrial growth. He also said the sensitive price index has been on constant decline since October 2008 and there is no justification in keeping the central bank policy rate at 15 per cent that has trifled growth. Dr Shah claimed that based on current inflation scenario the Karachi Over Night Bank rates should not be more than two per cent and the policy rate of the State Bank of Pakistan should be 9-9.5 per cent. He said after accounting for 3 to 5 per cent banking margins the industry would get credit at 13-14 per cent. He said that even this interest is high but the productive sector would be able to grow. He said the current high interest rates have marginalised the manufacturing sector of the country. "No industry could flourish if it gets credit at 20 per cent" Dr Shah asserted. He said more than 54 per cent of Pakistani population is under the age of 25. Every year about 4 million of them join the adult workforce. He said that Pakistan needed to grow at 9 to 10 per cent to provide jobs to about four million youth who join the workforce every year. Former Advisor on Finance further said that economy was moving comfortably till the mid of 2007-08 fiscal year. He said the economic managers of previous regime knew that the high oil prices would put pressure on foreign exchange reserves. He said that he had handed over a roadmap to this government last year. He said the plan was to offload small percentage of public sector companies like National Banks, KAPCO etc in the London Stock Exchange in April 2009. He said at that time the stock market was at its peak of 15800 points and the share prices of these companies were very high. He said that the government would have obtained $4-5 billion from these transactions. He regretted that the new government scrapped the programme of off loading these shares in the global market without going in to the pros and cons of its decision. He said that oil rates hike consumed most of the foreign exchange reserves and the government had to go with a begging bowl to the IMF. He said that the rot has not stopped even after IMF deal because the government has stagnated growth and the revenue sources are drying up due to regular closure of industries. He said that the option to off load stocks is not feasible as the market has lost $45 billion since the assumption of power by this government. He said that the rupee that remained stable from 2002 till June 2008 has lost 29 per cent in value that has scared the investors. He said that the revival journey would now be hard, long and painful. He said revival of industries would not be possible without promoting domestic consumerism. He said that exports are important but the competitiveness would come after local industries attain economies of scale through promotion of domestic consumerism.