HYDERABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Ahsan Iqbal, termed the effective communication network essential to gain fruitful results of China Pakistan Economic corridor in the region.
The federal government has given priority to developing communication network besides power generation in order to achieve the required results of the CPEC in the country, he added.
The minister stated this while delivering presidential remarks at the inaugural session of three days long international conference on "China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Political, Economic and Social Perspectives", organised by the Area Study Centre Fareast and Southeast Asia of University of Sindh at the auditorium of Department of Pharmacy Allama I.I Kazi Campus Jamshoro on Tuesday.
Ahsan Iqbal said that a strong infrastructure was necessary to achieve the task of development in any country of the world and it was the reason that the federal government has focused on road connectivity, enhancing power generation capacity and producing skilled manpower in order to achieve required tasks of development of all four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Federal Administered Tribal Areas of the country through CPEC.
The government was fully committed to make the country an economic zone for the region in order to address the issues of the country particularly unemployment, the minister said and added that the developed countries have achieved their tasks by converting the agriculture economy into the industrial economy and the present government is also moving towards industrial economy to reap the fruits of development.
He said Pakistan is located at the centre of South Asia, China and Central Asia and the government has adopted the strategy of geo-economics while considering the fact that geopolitics strategy had caused losses to Pakistan. With advantage of regional connectivity, Pakistan can achieve success from northern, southern and eastern countries of the region, the minister said and added that both China and Pakistan could play pivotal role in bringing peace, progress and prosperity in the region through CPEC.
He said that China has achieved its task of development through its low cost production ability as a result of which numbers of the countries were taking benefits of Chinese investments.
The past rulers of the country have failed to gain benefits and it was the present government which decided to gain fruits of development and now China has become the topmost foreign direct investor in Pakistan within a short period of two years, the minister said. (APP)