The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has welcomed the government’s initiative to devise a first of its kind multi-layer comprehensive national security policy and termed it a positive measure as it would grapple complex security landscapes and unprecedented challenges to peace and stability.
Talking to businessmen, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Zafar Bakhtawari said the new policy should address all security challenges that the country was facing since 9/11. He said no such security policy would be effective to achieve the target of peace and stability unless drastic change was brought in it.
Since no comprehensive security plan had been put in place despite heavy toll exacted by terrorism and vulnerable state of law and order in the country, it would be a rational approach of the government for bringing economic stability, he added.
Since independence, he said, Pakistan had been facing many internal and external security challenges for its national security and Pakistan always played a frontline role to counter terrorism. Now it had become imperative to design and seriously implement security policy for economic development of the country which had suffered a lot due to terrorism and unemployment which was root cause of promoting alarming criminal activities within the country, he added.
The ICCI president said that rising security threats were badly damaging business activities and discouraging investment, therefore, the government should take measures to curb this trend. He said Pakistan security situation had greatly affected their economic growth which had slowed to 2.9 pc per annum and investment was down to 50 years low at 12.5 percent of GDP. Moreover, foreign direct investment simply collapsed from $7billion to $1 billion in the last 10 years. Similarly, export was still stagnant at $24 billion for the last two years, so proactive measures should be taken to resolve these economic issues, he added.
He appreciated the determination of government to bring peace for economic stability at all costs and was of the view that this five-layer approach of national security policy would help design dismantling, containing, preventing, educating and reintegrating all dimensions of security problems at all levels. Therefore, the government should consider inter-state as well as its intra-state security issues, he added.
He proposed that Pakistan should follow China’s backburner security model in Hong Kong and Mahathir Mohamad’s security policy in Malaysia, and many other countries like USA and Russia security strategic models to tackle law and order situations, energy and natural resources security issues for economic revival of the country.
The president stressed it had now become imperative for policymakers, government officials, and strategists to look for the reasons of being insecure state and ways to develop structured national security policy to overcome the declining of real GDP growth rate from 7.7-3.4 percent from the year 2005-2012.
While recognising the challenges, he told that sectarianism was the biggest threat to the country and national security policy should be strong, realistic and balanced enough to curb the sectarianism which would fillip our national consciousness, trade and ultimately our economy.