In general Zia gave economic development and policy a fairly low priority (aside from Islamization) and delegating its management to technocrats such as Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Aftab Qazi and Vaseem Jaffrey. However, between 1977 and 1986, the country experienced an average annual growth in the GNP of 6.8%—the highest in the world at that time—thanks in large part to remittances from the overseas workers, rather than government policy.The first year of Zia's government coincided with a dramatic rise in remittances, which totaled $3.2 billion/year for most of the 1980s, accounted for 10 percent of Pakistans's GDP; 45 percent of its current account receipts, and 40 percent of total foreign exchange earnings.
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Zia put forward the theory of ‘chadar ur chaar devari’ and this was to be applied to women. Thus, for the first time, a woman could be flogged for adultery; if a rape was reported, 4 witnesses were to be provided; otherwise, legally the rape could be termed adultery. Another law, ‘the law of evidence’ under the Shariah laws proposed that the testimony of a woman was not equal to that man: in legal matters, two women would have to stand witness against the testimony of one man. The status of women was thus arbitrarily cut in half by Zia. There was little consensus amongst Muslim authorities over this law. The lack of consensus among the re1igious authorities combined with countrywide protests forced Zia to hold back on making the Shariah law the law of the country.
The most important achievement of Zia’s Government was the implementation of reforms to introduce the Islamic system in the country. General Zia-ul-Haq wanted to make Pakistan the citadel of Islam so that it could play an honorable and prominent role for the Islamic world. The steps taken by General Zia were in the right direction and had long-term impacts, the Zakat tax introduced by General Zia still holds and so do many of the other laws. General Zia set