ISLAMABAD   -   Prime Minister She­hbaz Sharif Monday stressed that they had to make huge invest­ments on the country’s youth because those nations had always ex­celled whose youth got skills and requisite de­grees in different fields.

Addressing a ceremo­ny of the Prime Minis­ter’s National Innova­tion Awards, the prime minister expressed his pleasure over the strides made by the country’s youth in dif­ferent fields by utilising their talents and skills.

The country’s fu­ture was in safe hands and they had to make investments on the youth’s talent as they direly deserved it, he added. The prime min­ister said it was a mat­ter of satisfaction as the young people strived during their education­al careers and showed their innovative skills in the information tech­nology (IT) sector, bio­diesel, traffic lights, mo­torbikes etc.

Under the Prime Min­ister’s National Youth Award Programme, a total of Rs 160 million was distributed among the 100 talented youths who had achieved in­novative business proj­ects. The ceremony was also attended by minis­ters, parliamentarians and foreign ambassa­dors. The prime min­ister said Pakistan was facing financial challeng­es, but he was confident that they would steer the country out of the issues.Such situa­tions arose in the lives of nations, he said, stressing that the Pakistani na­tion had to make the determination and chart its way forward and once they had decided, then nothing could hamper it.The prime minister also expressed his gratitude to China for supporting Paki­stan during the economic constraints by extending $1 billion loan facility.

During the last 75 years, he opined that foreign debts proved a hefty bur­den upon Pakistan whereas those na­tions had progressed that utilised the foreign loans and returned it on the basis of their talent, honesty and skills.“We have to get rid of these debts as they could not thrive on the foreign debts,” he said, adding the country was gifted with precious resources.The prime minister, without naming the previous government, said he would not go into details about the man-made crises in the past. He said the challenges were faced by the nations and stressed that they should make a promise to change the fate of Pakistan without seeking foreign debts.

Referring to 1971, he said they lost one part of the Quaid’s Pakistan but never learnt lessons from the past.

The prime minister said the leg-pull­ing and game of allegations must be ceased and they all have to agree upon a unified national agenda as being practiced by different countries. “The whole nation has to decide upon one national agenda with salient contours for foreign and economic policies,” he reiterated. The prime minister also re­gretted that words of certain person­alities in the previous government had annoyed China.Despite all that, China stood by Pakistan in difficult time, he said and lauded the role of other brotherly and friendly countries of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. China had made a $30 billion investment in the flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Terming the achieve­ments of young innovators as ‘out­standing’, the prime minister laud­ed the contributions of their teachers and parents, saying the entire nation felt pride over them.

Referring to awarding amount, the prime minister said Rs one million to each winner was not sufficient con­sidering the current inflation, as it was less when compared with the past. In the past, he said as Khadim-e-Punjab, he introduced the Punjab Skills Devel­opment Company initiative which was first launched in the southern Punjab. He said that millions of rupees were spent not on brick and mortar type of structures, but training was imparted to the talented youth. They gave away Rs10,000 per student and companies trained them, he added.

Further elaborating his point of view, the prime minister said govern­ments always played a catalyst role to spur activities for industries and ag­riculture.Whereas thousands of lap­tops were given to the high achievers in the Punjab province on pure merit, the same were also distributed in Gil­git-Baltistan and Kashmir, he added.

The prime minister said during the Covid pandemic, those laptops helped the students to continue their educational activities, besides pro­viding them with self-employment opportunities. He said during the tenure of former PM Nawaz Sharif, laptops were also distributed by the Federal Government. He said it was his desire to provide laptops to every child of the country.On the occasion, the prime minister called the ambas­sador of Azerbaijan on stage and ap­preciated Azerbaijan leadership for an agreement to supply LNG (lique­fied natural gas) to Pakistan.Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima Khawa­ja, in her speech, said meetings of the youth with top business ideas would also be arranged with the investors to implement their ideas. She said Rs 100 billion business loans were dis­persed in the last decade while over one million free laptops had been distributed among talented students that proved life-changing for them.

On average, she said, Rs 7 billion per year business loans was distributed in last 10 years while Rs 30 billion in busi­ness loans were distributed among the youth in last one year. Meanwhile, Paki­stan Muslim League (Nawaz) politicians Monday called on Prime Minister Sheh­baz Sharif here and discussed with him matters of current political situations. A four-member delegation led by former Member Provincial Assembly Khawaja Imran Nazir met with the prime minis­ter and thanked him for approving vari­ous development projects for youth and farmers of the country especially Pun­jab in budget 2023-24.