Federal Minister Planning, Development & Reform Ahsan Iqbal today said that political instability and inconsistency in policies, poor investment in infrastructure, wrong economic policies and disjointed governance cost dearly in the past. We will not let mistakes of the past to be repeated. Pakistan’s Vision-2025 has put country on path of transformation and building a modern economy. Ahsan Iqbal stated at “Building for Tomorrow” event organized by General Electric, attended by members of federal cabinet, selective gathering of government officials, members of academia and leaders from corporate sector. Ahsan Iqbal pointed out that success stories around the world explicitly tell about the importance of political stability and consistency in policies for the growth and prosperity of a nation and emphasized upon the need of having the same in Pakistan to sustain the process of economic growth after present government’s policies put the economy back on track since 2013. He said economic indicators, law & order and in other spheres of national life, things are on positive trajectory and said Pakistan is a changed country from what it used to be in 2013 with precarious security situation and deteriorating economic conditions. Federal Minister said that country missed many opportunities in the past to develop economically, but no more repeat of the past. We have received a historic opportunity in the form of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which improved country’s investment profile significantly by attracting the attention of foreign investors. Ahsan Iqbal said that CPEC would also turn the country into energy, trade and commerce hub in the region and would help to realize the goals of Vision-2025 aiming at improving the regional connectivity by building a modern infrastructure in the country. Work on CPEC projects is moving forward in full swing. He called for adoption of a collaborative approach by working together to realize the dream of taking Pakistan in top twenty five economies of the world by 2025. He also touched upon the issue of transparency in the governance and said that GE representative admitted that transaction GE done in Pakistan’s energy sector is most transparent compared to any other part of the world. Minister also spoke about outdated and irrelevant economic policies based on import substitution paradigm, which were adopted during the non-democratic regimes and pointed out that these policies ignored the export growth strategy , resulting in nominal export growth over the years. Ahsan Iqbal said that disjointed platform also resulted in sluggish economic growth in past and now collaborative governance platform are hallmark of Vision-2025. Federal Minister Planning & Development said that in today’s age of economic ideologies, country needs to invest in productivity, quality and innovation to become competitive in the global market. He also stressed upon the need to work harder, better and smarter to meet the needs of productivity, quality and innovation and noted that speed is now the essence of development and growth. “We need to adopt ourselves to catch up the fast changing requirements of new age, Ahsan Iqbal maintained. He noted that we need to equip ourselves with the skills to respond to challenges to turn them into opportunities to achieve growth and prosperity in the coming years.
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