ISLAMABAD, Nov 28 (APP): Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday reiterating the government resolve to transform Pakistan’s economic landscape, said that the national security of the country had direct linkages with the economic security.
“If we are economically strong, our exports are growing fast, industrial sector is expanding…….then our economic security will automatically strengthen our critical security,” the prime minister said while addressing the 26th National Security Workshop of Defence University.
Emphasizing the government’s commitment to execute a comprehensive “Charter of Economy”, the prime minister said that in 2018, he as an opposition leader, also suggested the idea of charter of economy and now “We are fully prepared to execute this idea”.
The prime minister, stressing the need to privatize all the State Own Entities (SOEs), said the government must go out of the business. “The government’s mandate is only to facilitate the private businesses.”
“We should completely do away with the businesses to save trillions of rupees,” he said adding that all institutions were on same page and he and the Army chief were also fully aligned on this issue.
Facilitating the audience over strong performance of Pakistan Stock Exchange that crossed 100,000 points on Thursday, the prime minister said this was the result of team effort and close coordination among the federal government and various stakeholders. “This is also about business sentiments and we believe that Pakistan is slowly and steadily moving towards right direction.”
He said the day before yesterday the stock market witnessed a steep fall of around 4000 points due to what happened in Islamabad, however he said as the situation became normal, the market rebounded in next couple of days and crossed the 100,000 points which never happened in history of Pakistan.
The prime minister said this was the fact that over a period of time spanning over a decade, the economic progress slowed down rather deteriorated due to various factors.
He said the country was still facing many challenges. “We all know that in June 2023 it was touch and go as Pakistan was at the verge of default due to variety of reasons that we all know.”
The prime minister highlighted that the government managed to bring the economy out of crisis due to a successful standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
However, he said that the programme would bring more hardship to the people but the government had no choice.
He also hoped and prayed to Allah Almighty that this would be the last programme with the IMF.
PM Shehbaz Sharif said the country had seen several brilliant economic plans over the period of 76 years but they failed due to lack of will to do.
He told that the government was preparing a home grown plan that would be implemented in letter and spirit. “I will do my best along with my colleagues to implement this plan in letter and spirit and transform Pakistan’s economic landscape.”
Other than the economic challenges, the prime minister said the country was also facing the security challenge. He said around 80,000 people had sacrificed their lives in war against terrorism and the economic losses touched US$130 billion.
During the Nawaz Sharif government, the terrorism was completely defeated, however this monster had surfaced again and was showing its ugly face as the sad incidents were happening on daily basis.
“What happened in Parachinar just a few days ago, innocent people lost their lives from both sides,” he expressed the grief.
The prime minister said there was attack on Islamabad and thousands of people were marching with guns in their hands to create all kind of uncertainty and chaos which they really wanted to destroy the government’s untiring efforts in stabilizing the country’s economy.
He resolved to protect the country’s future with the support of all stakeholders. “Together we have to move forward and this can only happen through unity of actions.”
During question answer session, the prime minister said until we do not bring quantum jump in economic growth, the external debt gap could not filled.
He said in order to get rid of the external debt, we will have to generate our own resources.
As regards the internal debts challenge, the prime minister said the biggest problem was in the power sector, as the power circular debt had touched two and half trillion rupees and the gas circular debt was also growing due to leakages, gaps in management and system, and theft.
“We are making efforts to resolve these issues but it will take time.”
With respect to the issue of tax evasion, the prime minister lamented that tax evasions worth trillions of rupees was being reported that must had to stop.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan, Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema, Privatization Minister Aleem Khan, and Information Minister Ataullah Tarar were also present on the occasion.