Federal Minister for Interior, Planning, Development & Reforms Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday inaugurated first-ever NADRA Facilitation Desk for business community at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The NADRA Kiosk at LCCI is another great facility and it would meet needs of large number of businessmen in Lahore. Federal Minister said that establishment of NADRA Kiosk Centre at LCCI is part of the government efforts to facilitate the business community.
Earlier, addressing the LCCI members, Ahsan Iqbal said that economic health of the country was frightening before 2013. He said Pakistan was considered the most dangerous country of the world due to terrorism and deteriorating law and order situation, and loadshedding was 20 hours long while the industrial activity was badly hampered due to power shortage before 2013.
He said that people were shifting from Karachi due to extortion and target killings. National Anthem and flag-hoisting was a crime in Balochistan before 2013. Economy was stagnant at 3 percent while IMF was predicting that Pakistan would be bankrupt in 2014. But situation quickly changed when PML-N government came into power and turned Pakistan into fast emerging economy. He said that PML-N government targeted four areas including energy, extremism, economy and education and achieved considerable success.
The Minister said World Economic Forum has declared Pakistan better than India as an emerging economy. He said that GDP growth reached to 5.3 percent in previous year while it expected that it would be around 6 percent at the end of ongoing year.
He said that PML-N government has added 11,000 MW of electricity in the national grid. He said that investment in infrastructure development reached to Rs 413 billion. He said that Lahore-Multan Road section will be completed by the end of 2018, Multan Sukkur section will also be completed.
Ahsan Iqbal said that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would change the destiny of Pakistan, as the two countries were taking ahead the project to its next stages successfully. The Interior Minister added that today the world was focusing eyes on Pakistan besides terming it as an ideal country for foreign investment.
About CPEC, Ahsan Iqbal said that this project is a game changer and it is playing a significant role in economic development of Pakistan. He said that massive investments under CPEC is further strengthening Pak-China friendship.
The LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid said that in case of Pakistan, governance and institutional quality have deteriorated over the years. In corruption perception index, although Pakistan's ranking improved slightly but it still ranked on high side at 116th among 180 countries. The low performing area identified was overall country's risk which includes credit risk, economic risk and political risk. Pakistan had not been able to improve the business climate with the result that it's ranking slipped to as low as 144th out of 190 economies in 2017.
He said according to the recently released World Bank Ease of Doing Business 2018 report, Pakistan has slipped three places reaching an all-time low of 147.
He said that CPEC has changed geo-political equilibrium in the region due to which new geo-political pressures are developing on Pakistan. So far as the preparedness for CPEC is concerned, the governments of Pakistan and China have to engage the private sectors of both the countries to create win-win situation for all, he said.
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