ISLAMABAD
Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan and Germany should establish knowledge corridor. Such an arrangement would benefit Pakistan from the experiences and expertise of German universities.
He stated this in a meeting with German Ambassador to Pakistan Ina Lepel, who called on him at his office. The minister briefed her about Vision-2025 and said that it is the first phase of Grand National Roadmap to take the country among the top ten competitive economies of the world by 2047. He said that Vision-2025 aims to bring the country among top 25 competitive economies of the country. Through vision 2025, strong foundation of knowledge economy and inclusive growth has been laid.
Ahsan Iqbal said that twenty five goals have been identified in vision-2025 by targeting the areas of education, health, gender equality, sanitation, water, food & energy security, governance, knowledge economy, tax-to-GDP ratio, road & rail density, ease of doing business and many more.
Minister said that country needs to achieve seven to eight per cent sustained growth in next ten years to meet the demands of growing youth population of the country. He said that for achieving this target, we need to adopt “out of box” thinking and transformational change in our way of working because “business as usual” would not work any more.
We are hoping this year growth rate would settle above 5 percent and expected to close above 7 percent by 2018.
Ahsan Iqbal pointed out that for achieving the sustained growth rate, a growth strategy has been proposed in Vision-2025 by maintaining economic discipline and undertaking public sector reforms as well as improving productivity, urban management and focusing youth & connectivity.
Minister noted that Pakistan is not under-developed country but under-managed country where business as usual approach is distorting the affairs.
"We missed many opportunities in the past but can’t afford it in future. Vision-2025 is unfinished agenda of 2010 that we devised in our last tenure and couldn’t accomplish the targets after toppling of PML-N government," he said.
APP adds: Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan on Wednesday called for establishing Pakistan-Germany Joint Business Chamber for enhancing bilateral trade relations and bringing more investment from Germany to Pakistan.
"Germany should also cooperate with us in establishing design houses of Pakistan textile companies in Germany so the Pakistan textile products could benefit from Germany fashion industry", Khurram Dastgir said talking here to German Ambassador to Pakistan Ms Ina Lepel.
The minister was of the view that a large number of Pakistanis were residing in Germany where a significant number of Pakistanis also owned major German business companies. He specifically urged those companies to invest in Pakistan as the ministry was ready to provide them special incentives in this regard.
He said a special session would be arranged to address the Pakistani businessmen who trade with Germany.
The German envoy informed on the occasion that recently she visited different factories in Pakistan along with representatives of few German companies who expressed satisfaction over the working environment of the factories.