ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Security and Strategic Policy Planning, Dr Moeed Yusuf Wednesday said the Prime Minister’s vision for Pakistan was based on an economic security and human welfare paradigm.
The economic security vision had three pillars: connectivity, development partnerships and peace within the region and beyond whereas most of the conversation in the world had imagined Pakistan as a country associated with traditional security, he said.
These views were expressed by the SAPM on National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning, Dr. Moeed Yusuf, during his keynote address in a webinar titled “Economic Outreach Initiatives and Non-Traditional Security Threats Facing Pakistan," said a press release.
Dr Yusuf said that connectivity was a key objective and that was why Pakistan focused on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and peace in Afghanistan.
"When it comes to development partnerships, the dream is for Pakistan to become a melting pot, a hub of interdependence for positive global economic interests."
Dr. Moeed Yusuf stressed that Pakistan should shift to a model in which economic leverage could be used for political gains and vice versa.
The future lies in coordinating economic diplomacy, he maintained. During the discussion, Dr Yusuf explained that economic security and military security were intertwined, and one could not be pursued at the expense of the other.
He outlined the Government’s approach that aimed to increase the national resource pie so that the military, in his view grossly under resourced, could be funded generously.
Explaining the objective of the Economic Outreach Initiative (EOI) being led by the Prime Minister, Dr. Yusuf said that the aim was maximizing Pakistan’s potential and increase dollar inflows.
He said the exercise had identified an additional $30 billion plus potential of foreign exchange earnings.
The SAPM was of the view that Pakistan was looking forward to working with the Biden administration. But our main effort was to change the nature of the conversation with the US, and it would be centered on Pakistan being an economic base to maximize our economic potential.
"We also need to explain to the US that India has become a liability for them and an agent of destabilization in a nuclear region."
Speaking on the role of think tanks and policy-making, Dr Moeed Yusuf said that NSD would soon launch a think tank portal soon so that input from intellectual capital available outside the government could be streamlined into the policy-making discourse.
The webinar was well-attended by experts from both Pakistan and abroad.