Leading Issues in the Economy of Pakistan: Agenda for Reforms Figure 18.1: The Path of Foreign Exchange Reserves How can the‘boom to bust’ cycle be broken? The following recommendations are made. i) There has to be a fundamental move away from Annual Plans to Three-Year Action Plans and 10-Year Perspective Plans. ii) The Role of the National Economic Council has to be greatly enhanced. This is a Con­stitutional forum with the Prime Minister as the Chairman and Chief Ministers of the Provinces as members. There are four other members, one from each Province. The NEC is required to meet at least twice a year. This has generally not been the case in the past. The NEC must concentrate on the design, approval and monitoring of implementation of major structural policies. Three-year Plans should be subject to debate and approval in the Parliament. 18.2 Manipulation of Statistics There have been numerous attempts over the years to present through manipulation of statistics a picture of the economy better than the underlying reality. The following types of manipulation have been observed: i) Overstatement of the GDP growth rate. For example, the growth rate of the economy is reported as 6 percent in 2021-22. But for this to have happened, the household con ­sumption expenditure was shown as having achieved a phenomenal growth rate of 10 percent, well beyond the realm of possibilities. The actual growth rate was probably closer to 4.5 percent, as obtained in Annexure___. 186