Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that national security is at the center of government priority.
Addressing the Command Staff College here on Monday‚ he said Pakistan has suffered immensely in economic and human terms in the fight against terrorism and extremism. However, he expressed the confidence that these sacrifices will lead us to a future where our generations will live a peaceful and productive life.
Giving an in-depth view of the challenges faced by the country including that of security and a weak economy‚ PM Gilani said the government not only met the challenges effectively but implemented eighty percent of its election manifesto.
He said prudent policies pursued by the government helped achieve macroeconomic stability. He said “all economic indicators have shown improvement since we came into power. Our GDP has grown by 3.7 percent. Inflation currently at 11 percent will be brought down to single digit next year. Our fiscal deficit has remained 5.5 percent while current account balance 1.8 percent.”
He said “our national GDP has doubled from 10 trillion rupees rupees to 21 trillion rupees. Tax revenues are doubled from one to two trillion rupees this year. During the last year we spent 2.2 trillion rupees on development.”
Prime Minister Gilani said foreign exchange reserves stand at 16.3 billion dollars.
“Our exports last year reached twenty five billion dollars historic mark. We are maintaining this tempo despite global recession”, he said.
The Prime Minister said the government is pursuing reforms agenda to alleviate poverty and ensure fiscal responsibility and good governance. He said “as part of these reforms‚ we increased the support prices of different crops in line with the international market for the development of rural economy. This step paid dividend and the country has registered unprecedented production of wheat‚ cotton‚ rice and sugarcane. As a result of these policies we are today exporting wheat and sugar.”
He said under the Benazir Income Support Programme‚ the poor segments of the society have been targeted.
So far 180 billion rupees have been spent under this programme. Currently seven million people are benefiting from this programme and we aim to expand it to nine million people, he said.
