ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday announced to launch a month-long campaign titled ‘Jazba-e-Tameer’ (constructive spirit) from March 23 to highlight the success stories of individuals at different levels.
“The drive will continue till April 22, during which one-minute duration video clips would be received by the ministry and top stories will be awarded with prizes,” he said while addressing a news conference in the capital.
He invited the youth to participate in the campaign by sharing their success stories with the ministry.
Ahsan Iqbal also asked the media to play its role in finding success stories of those who achieved excellence in their respective fields and made the nation proud. “Media should visit each district and province to find out the success stories of the individuals” he added.
The minister said that March, 23 had great significance for Pakistan as, on that day in 1940, Muslims of the sub-continent saw a dream of having their own motherland.
He believed that the significance of March 23 was that Pakistan had received its first constitution on the same day in 1956.
“The country needs the same spirit now so that a positive narrative of Pakistan can be projected effectively and the target set for the Vision-2025 could be achieved,” he added.
He further said, “We want to list Pakistan among top 25 economies of the world by 2025.”
He said that the government had made remarkable progress on various fronts as it succeeded in overcoming the power outages, terrorism, and improved the national economy to bring the nation to a sustainable path of progress and development.
He recalled that when the PML-N government had come into power in 2013, there was power load-shedding for about 20 to 22 hours a day, and incidents of terrorism that crashed the economy.
“The size of the national economy has inflated from $210 billion to $310 billion during the tenure of the PML-N government,” he said and expressed the resolve to take it to the one trillion dollar figure.
Answering a question, the minister said that there would be a significant increase in the size of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the year 2018-19.
Replying to another question, he said that international institutions were appreciating the performance of Pakistan’s economy.
He said that billions of dollars of foreign investment were pouring into Pakistan due to prudent economic policies that were introduced by the government in the past five years.
To a question about the increase in petroleum prices, the minister said that the government had nothing to do with it as the prices were determined in accordance with the international markets.
He said that the continuity of policies and political stability were imperative for achieving sustainable the economic growth.