Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said that economic development is the key to progress and development but terrorism and extremism are badly hampering the economic turnaround in Pakistan.
Nawaz was chairing the special meeting of the Federal Cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday.
“The country is passing through difficult times and we are evolving a consensus strategy to sort out all issues confronting the nation.”
He said that during his previous tenures as the PM his government was following the policy of free market economy which led to faster economic growth at that time. We have again started with the same policy with enlarged vision and increased vigour, the prime minister added.
The cabinet discussed good management practices to be adopted by the government sector to make it more effective, efficient and accountable. The PM expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the PIA during the meeting and said that it is incurring Rs 3.3 billion monthly losses due to its inefficiency, corruption and malpractices. “At present we are only dealing with day to day crisis at PIA. Taxpayer’s hard earned money is being paid to PIA to bail it out of economic crisis and sustain itself, and this situation cannot continue anymore,” Nawaz added.
The PM said that this money should be invested in power sector and development of other resources instead of sustaining the inefficient PIA. He said that overemployment and low quality services have led to downfall of our national airline, which once was the world’s best. He directed the PIA management to provide a detailed briefing on the present situation of PIA and bring about concrete proposals to reform the national airline.
Senator Dato’ Siri Idris Jala, Minister in Malaysian Prime Minister’s Office and CEO Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PMDU), attended the cabinet meeting on invitation of Nawaz. He shared his experiences of Malaysian Economic Programmes and Government Transformation. He informed the cabinet that Malaysia transformed its economy by devising short term plans within the framework of its larger strategic programmes and set time-line for achieving those plans by giving key performance indicators. The public as well as private sectors were involved, through well defined process, in devising these policies and making them achievable, he added. He informed the cabinet that the procedures were made simple to attract investors, both foreign and domestic.
Nawaz said his government is following an economic model whereby key development sectors have been identified and prioritized. Moreover systems are being simplified. The PM said his government has prioritised economy, energy and modernizing infrastructure all over the country and investment in power sector. He added that a team of experts is working on the reforms action plan, Pakistan can learn from the success stories of Malaysia and replicate the same in Pakistan, he added.
Nawaz said, “We look forward to working closely with Malaysian government. He also recalled his association with Mahatir Muhammad, the then prime minister of Malaysia, and said that they had extensive discussions on the economic reforms and shared experiences of each other.”
Nawaz said that a high powered delegation would soon visit Malaysia to further strengthen cooperation particularly in the economic field between the two countries. He thanked the Malaysian delegation and extended invitation to Malaysian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan.
Govt gets tips on economy from malaysian minister
