What's Billions of Dollars Between Friends?

Kudos to Pakistan Today for increasing the potential GDP of Pakistan by US$10 Billion. Alternatively, shame on the Express Media Group for causing a loss to the national exchequer of over US$10 Billion.

Seriously, though, if you look at the differing valuations of the accords signed during the visit to Islamabad of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in the various papers, you are likely to be scratching your head.

Chinese PM Jiabao with PM Gilani at Pak-China Business Summit (Photo: AFP / Dawn)

Here is the differing monetary worth of the Pakistan-China accords as papers across Pakistan quoted them:

Express Tribune: Up to US$30bn

Express: Up to US$30bn

Jang: US$30bn

The News: US$30bn

Daily Times: US$35bn

Nawai Waqt: US$35bn

The Nation: US$35bn

Dawn: US$36bn

Pakistan Today: US$40bn

I guess when you're playing around with tens of billions of dollars, what's ten here or there. But consider for a moment what even one billion dollars means for Pakistan at this stage. I mean, is it really so insignificant an amount that different valuations can be off by that much? Can someone please explain to me these discrepancies?

Video of the Day

Sometimes we like to share things that are actually brilliant...

From the BBC's documentary series "The Joy of Stats", featuring Professor Hans Rosling, described as a "superstar boffin" whose "eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend." This is what the description of this particular clip says:

"Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's commentator's style to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before - using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine."

Enjoy!