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The Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of Pakistan (Urdu: اقتصادی منصوبہ جاتِ پنج سالہ ، پاکستان) (otherwise publicly known as Five-Year Economic Plans for the National Economy), were the series of nationwide centralised economic plans and targets as part of the economic development initiatives, in the Pakistan.[1] The plan was conceived by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and were studied and developed by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) based on the theory of Cost-of-production value, and also covered the areas of Trickle-down system. Supervision and fulfillment of this programme became the watchword of Pakistan's civil bureaucracy since early 1950s.[2]
Inspired by the five-year plans of the Soviet Union, the programme was visioned and proposed by the Finance Minister Malick Ghoulam[3] to Prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan who initially backed the programme, in 1948.[4] The first five-year plans were approved by the prime minister Ali Khan in 1950 for the period of 1950–55; it was accepted in a view to serve in the rapid and intensified industrialisation, expansion of banking and financial services, with a major focus on heavy industry.[5] Although not five-year plans did not take up the full period of time assigned to them, some of the plans were failed and abandoned whilst some completed successfully. Altogether, there were eight five-year plans (starting 1950 till 1999)[1] and were replaced with the more effective programme, the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) under Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (office: 2004–2007).[1]