LAHORE, May 12 (APP):Chief Minister Punjab and President of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that Pakistan was a peace loving country and its people were wonderful, hard working and peace lovers.
He was addressing the Punjab Conference participated by ambassadors, counsellors and senior officers from economic institutions of more than 60 countries.
Pakistan, he said, needed leadership which had the determination to serve the people and resolve their problems, asserting that Pakistani political leadership needed to have consensus on the economic roadmap. Parties and governments come and go but the economic agenda of the nation should not be changed.
“If the PML-N gets victory in 2018 elections and given chance to serve the people, then we will advance the agenda of development and progress of the country. The promotion of ties with neighbouring
countries will be the important ingredient of our foreign policy and we will advance the agenda of strengthening the economy,” he vowed.
Shehbaz Sharif said, “Addressing ambassadors from all over world is an honour for me. The objective of making this contact after being elected as the President of PML-N is to tell the world about the performance of the past and vision of the future.”
He mentioned that PML-N was working on the ideology of the founder of Pakistan and Allama Iqbal and it was moving forward while acting up on their vision.
He said Pakistan had faced difficult circumstances in 1979 and it became a frontline state in a big war. Pakistan became a frontline state again in 2002 in the war against terrorism and in this war Pakistan gave sacrifice of more than 70,000 lives which included officers and soldiers of Pak army and security institutions and common Pakistani even children. Pakistan played the status of frontline state in the cold war.
He said in the 21st century Pakistan was again the frontline state in the war against terrorism and extremism. The Pakistani nation displayed determination and encourage in this war. He said the success in this war was the result of consensus between military and political leadership.
In the Swat operation of 2009, Zarb-e-Azab of 2014, and the current operation Rad-ul-Fasad, political and military leaderships were on the same page, he said and added Pakistan Army had rendered great sacrifices in the war against terrorism started after the 9/11. Pakistan discharged the duty of keeping largest number of refugee population.
He said Pakistan had a long history of being a responsible state at international level and we had always respected the resolutions of the United Nations and international treaties.
Ensuring peace and having good relations was our top priority. Pakistan had a long history of relationship with Islamic countries while Pakistan also had strong and consistent relationship with western countries, he said.
“We are proceeding forward while getting benefits after experiments of friendly countries and are thankful for the economic cooperation of these countries,” he said and added that the government of PML-N has taken concrete measures to strengthen the national economy due to which our economy was strong enough and the GDP had reached 5.8 percent which was highest in last 13 years. Similarly the ratio of agriculture progress remained 3.8 per cent.
“We are facing the challenges of deficit and we have to resolve it by promoting trade not by taking loans. The tax base needs to be increased and additional resources needs to be created. We have to utilise natural resources for progress and development of the nation. 60% population of Pakistan is consisted of youth and we should impart it modern skills to change the fate of the nation. The PML-N government is striving to prepare skilled manpower as per needs of the market. For the promotion of education, health and technical education, we are thankful to World Bank, DFID and other donor institutions and countries,” he said.
The chief minister said the PML-N government had saved billions of rupees in development projects during the last 9 and a half year and this amount was being spent on education and health projects.
He said investment of billions of rupees had been made in education and health sectors. He said the scholarship of Rs. 17 billion had been given to brilliant students from needy families under Punjab Education Endowment Fund. Thousands of girl and boy students had been able to get jobs after getting professional education and serving the nation as doctors, engineers and adopting other profession. They were sharing the burden of their families and becoming a helping hand of the society.
He said, “We have promoted merit and 200,000 teachers recruited on the merit. He said enrolment is 95% and third party audit has also been carried out. He said revolution has been brought about in health and education sectors. Culture of hospitals has been changed and CT machines of foreign countries have been installed at all district headquarter hospitals. The machines installed with public private partnership are working round-the-clock. We have learnt from the experiments of various countries. We have learnt from experiments of various countries and installed electricity projects under public private partnership.”
He added that energy crisis which had badly disturbed the national economy was overcome and hectic effects of PML-N government has resulted fruit and power crisis has been controlled.
He said China made the investment of billions of rupees under CPEC in the power projects. “We are working on the vision to make Pakistan a moderate, consolidated and developing countries. All citizens have same rights under the constitution of Pakistan. We are struggling for a bright future instead of looking towards past,” he maintained.
The Punjab chief minister said foreign policy of Pakistan was working on the principles given by the father of the nation.
He said CPEC was the best example of economic cooperation in neighbouring countries. He said, “We are thankful to China for supporting Pakistan.
He said Pakistan and China were working on the belt and road vision of Chinese president for the economic cooperation between both countries. He said new horizons of cooperation are being explored in the sectors of energy, communication, pipelines, ports, and others under CPEC.”
He said South Asia should say goodbye to race for weapons for the bright future. He said a large population of South Asia was suffering economic instability due to arms race. The Founder of Pakistan wanted to see the Pak-India relationships smooth as relationships between US and Canada.
He said both the neighbouring countries should live on the principles of independence, respect and equality.
Answering questions of ambassadors, Shehbaz Sharif said. “Our foreign policy will be based on peace, development and economic cooperation so that countries of the region could benefit from resources. We have wasted a lot of precious time in this regard and now it is the time to compensate for this loss.”
He clarified that India had conducted atomic explosion and Pakistan also conducted the same to make its defence strong. “Our measure was not aggressive but defensive,” he added.
Answering a question of an ambassador, the chief minister said Punjab government had provided jobs to 1.5 million youth and 65 per cent of population lives in rural areas and its employment was linked to agriculture.
He said they had invested billions of rupees to strengthen infrastructure in rural areas and made top quality road to link fields with markets and these measures had improved living in rural areas.
In the same way best health and education facilities had been provided in rural areas. Mobile hospitals provide health facilities to the rural population at their doorsteps in remote areas. Interest-free loans worth billions of rupees had been provided to small farmers. The youth had been provided interest-free loans for self-employment. Under the Land Record Information Management System record of ruler lands had been computerized. This measure had benefited the small farmers.
In reply to a question asked by the Chinese ambassador, Shehbaz Sharif said China was the all-weather and sincere friend of Pakistan and it had made investment of billions of rupees under CPEC and in same way DFID was also our partner. He mentioned that thousands of Pakistanis live in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and other countries and this was a CPEC of its type.
To a question by the Tajik ambassador, he said TAPI and CASA were wonderful projects and these projects were promoting ties between both countries and this cooperation was also a type of CPEC.
To another question, he said, “We need to speed up industrial development and end difference between imports and exports. We need to take development rate to 7 or 8 from 5.8 per cent by focusing on industries of export items.”
To a query by Afghan ambassador, the CM said both countries had similar religious and cultural ties and we were hosting 40 lakhs of Afghan refugees from decades. Peace in Afghanistan was drastically needed for peace in Pakistan.
Replying to a question of ambassador of Austria, he said, “We have taken revolutionary measures to protect cultural heritage and Greater Iqbal Park and other similar projects are the part of these measures.” He said Pakistan and India were atomic powers and both countries should spend their resources for elimination of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy.
He said unfortunately the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir were facing worst brutality and their blood was being spilled. Time demands that the Kashmir issue should be resolved as per resolutions of UN. Pakistan and India should sit together to resolve their matters through talks and international community should provide help in this regard.
He said increase in population was a big challenge and it should be controlled. Bangladesh and Malaysia had controlled this issue.
To another question, he said the PML-N government had taken revolutionary measures for the development of women and their empowerment and first centre to end harassment against women has been set up in Multan and women have been provided all facilities of redress of their problems under one roof. Women have also been included in all schemes of interest-free loans, educational funds and other welfare schemes.
Ambassadors from more than 60 countries including China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, Canada, India, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea and Malaysia attended the Punjab Conference.