ISLAMABAD - In a bid to engage Overseas Pakistanis in enhancing the country’s exports, the government has approved allocation of 20 per cent quota of trade officers in Pakistan’s missions abroad for them.

The decision was taken in a meeting held at Prime Minister’s Office regarding the reforms in postings of trade officers abroad.

Sources aware of the deliberations of the meeting informed The Nation that PTI government was according great significance to the Overseas Pakistanis and Prime Minister Imran Khan used to term them saviour of the nation as a major chunk of foreign reserves come from their remittances.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken a series of steps to facilitate the Overseas Pakistanis and special incentives were offered to them in case of investing in Pakistan and the current move was also aimed at involving them in the country’s affairs.

It was hoped that the Overseas Pakistanis could promote the cause of the country in effective fashion and could be instrumental in enhancing the country’s exports.

It may be recalled that the Prime Minister had directed Ministry of Commerce to revamp the entire system of postings of trade officers who are posted abroad to promote trade and commercial interests of the country.

The new policy approved by the Prime Minister focused on transparent and merit-based selection of the Trade Officers, market diversification, involvement of Pakistani diaspora, rationalising the expenditure, broad-based monitoring and performance evaluation and automation of the processes.

To effectively promote commercial interests of the country especially in the emerging markets and various regions across the globe, trade clusters have been focused in the new policy to ensure optimum utilization and maximum outreach of the trade officers.

The Prime Minister was informed that in order to ensure broad-based and real-time monitoring of the performance of the trade officers, the entire evaluation process has been made IT-based.

Secretary Commerce Mohammad Younus Dagha also briefed the Prime Minister about National Trade Data Analytics System which is being developed by the Ministry. The National Trade Data Analytics System with its comprehensive database of trade statistics, exporters/importers directory, product database and trade lead insight will help in better evaluation and promotion of trade interests of the country.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Imran Khan while chairing the high-level meeting reviewed various energy related projects.

Finance Minister Asad Umar, Petroleum Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Advisor to PM Abdul Razzak Dawood, Advisor to PM Dr Ishrat Hussain, Secretary Petroleum Mian Asad Hayauddin and senior officers attend the meeting.

Progress on Petroleum and Gas related projects came under consideration and the participants expressed their satisfaction over the progress made on these projects so far.

The meeting also reviewed the projects to be launched in coming days and the demand and supply of energy in the coming months, especially the electricity generation and its soaring demand also came under sharp focus.

PM WELCOMES CJ’S
STATEMENT

APP adds: Prime Minister Imran Khan welcoming the statement of Chief Justice of Pakistan on punishing those who give false testimony Tuesday said that journey towards truth was a `journey towards Naya Pakistan’.

“I welcome CJ’s statement on punishing those who give false testimony. Journey towards truth is a journey towards Naya Pakistan”, the Prime Minister said in a tweet posted on his social media handle.

“Nations become great because they have a higher value system. Muslim civilisations’ foundation was State of Medinah with truthfulness as the core value”, he added in the tweet.

The Prime Minister’s tweet came after Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa on Monday expressed serious concern over the false testimony and said that life imprisonment must be awarded to those who give false testimony as per law.

While referring to the case of false testimony of Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Khizar Hayat to the Sessions Court Narowal, the Chief Justice said, “From onward we are going to start a journey against false testimony and starting from this witness (Khizar) who lied. All witnesses should know that even if a small portion of testimony is based on lie, it will be rejected.”