Vorona

[imperialpearl]

Can economic planning work in Vorona?

Chief Secretary, Errol Prisban (centre), at a town hall meeting where the specifics of the NEPC were discussed

Within Vorona, the word ‘planning’ has not been a comfortable one in public life. To certain eras, it carries a suggestion of all things the free market capitalist might consider ‘ungodly.’ Of the cigarette-smoking man in their unseen offices and the facelessness of the bureaucracy. This suspicion, however, is not without its justification. It draws on a long memory of colonial rule, where plans, which were so far removed from the realities of the island’s economy, produced consequences that were unconsulted at best, not so easily undone at worst and which continue to impact life in Vorona centuries after independence. It is therefore a matter of significance that both Secretary for Finance and the Treasury, Dr Ian Mills and Secretary for Planning and Development Dr. Carl Tang, have now put before the CoG and the nation at large, a proposal of seemingly uncommon ambition: the creation of a National Economic Planning Commission, which, if created, would be tasked with producing detailed and actionable national economic plans in the pursuit of the sort of broad structural transformation that Chief Secretary Errol Prisban had initially promised when appointed to the position by President Netherwood but which he has since been unable to deliver on. According to insiders, the proposal had been circulating throughout the federal government as a departmental draft of the Department of Planning and Development on the feasibility of a national planning mechanism, which would inform the policies of both the current and future CoGs.

Speaking at a press conference at Federation House alongside Chief Secretary Prisban, both Dr. Mills and Dr. Tang noted that the idea marks a broad departure from the Kodonomic orthodoxy that had influenced Voronan fiscal thinking up to this point, as it would ultimately shift thinking towards institutionalism. According to Dr. Tang, the central contention of the proposal centres around the idea that the fiscal and monetary policy instruments which have historically proved faithful for Vorona in managing the performance of the economy, including budget allocations, tariff schedules and interest rate guidance issued by the Currency Board, are ultimately designed to manage/regulate the economy’s ‘temperature’ and cannot be relied upon to change the very composition of the economy, an act which is sorely needed given the state of the Voronan economy, as documented in the Gordon Commission’s report. He noted that although they can stimulate and temper economic activity, they cannot redirect the flow of investment from the sugarcane sector to the manufacturing workshops, technical colleges and other facilities that a more diversified, resilient economy would require. “The problem is not that producers are irrational. They are quite rational, actually. They invest in sugarcane because sugarcane offers them the greatest return, because the infrastructure, credit and marketing arrangements are all geared towards sugarcane. By their formulation,” Dr. Tang explains. “The alternatives are filled with uncertainties that no individual investor is able to shoulder on their own. It would not say that the market is failing. It is succeeding at perpetuating an economic model that the nation has every reason to wish to abandon.”

On details surrounding the NEPC, Dr. Mills noted that the agency would be governed by a Director-General, appointed by the Chief Secretary (on the advice of the Secretary for Planning and Development) and reporting directly to both the Secretaries of Finance and the Treasury and Planning and Development. The agency would be tasked with producing a very long-term National Economic Development Plan, which would set out the government’s objectives for the economy in the foreseeable and potentially unforeseeable future. He noted that the NEDP would detail the sectors to be developed, where investments would need to be prioritised to see those sectors be developed alongside managing budgetary and regulatory frameworks to create the enabling environment for the sort of fundamental economic transformation many Voronans expect of the CoG. The plan, he made sure to note, would not carry the force of law as it would not compel a private producer to invest in any particular direction, but would instead establish, for the first time in Voronan history, a comprehensive framework through which the federal government’s own investment decisions could be brought into alignment with defined national objectives. When questioned as to where provincial government would likely fall into this broader architecture, both Dr. Tang and Mills were careful to reject the suggestion that the proposal represented an attempt to usurp the provincial governments’ ability to govern over their respective economies. Dr Tang detailed that provincial governments would be expected to establish Economic Planning Offices, which would be responsible for preparing regional development plans which would be aligned with the broader national strategy. Under such an arrangement, he explained, the federal government may identify national priorities: heavy industry, pharmaceuticals, agro-processing and manufacturing, while provinces would retain significant discretion regarding how said priorities would be pursued.

The proposal draws, with acknowledged deliberateness, on the experiences of numerous territories that have employed similar approaches to manage economic transformation, albeit with varying degrees of success. Pointing to examples in Lodamun, Keymon and Kazulia, Dr. Mills noted that while the CoG had benefited from studying the experiences of other territories, the example most germane to Vorona’s particular circumstances was not to be found in any contemporary case. “None of the precedents that we reviewed is directly applicable to Vorona’s situation. As such, any framework would, as a result, need to be constructed from Voronan data and in response to Vorona’s unique conditions. The point of international comparison is not to import a model but to demonstrate that the capacity to undertake such a journey exists, that it has been successfully demonstrated and that it has not proved incompatible with the preservation of a functioning market economy.”

backdated: August 5645