—– Says govt aims to further strengthen bilateral ties with US
—– Sees United States is a major trade partner of Pakistan
—– Thanks US for extended vigorous cooperation over the recovery of flood-affectees
By Anzal Amin
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif says Pakistan and US are good friends and the bilateral relations between the two countries are getting further strengthened.
He expressed these views while addressing the ceremony in connection with 247th na-tional day of the United States, in Islamabad today.
The Prime Minister said United States is the major trade partner of Pakistan. He said the US extended vigorous cooperation with regard to the recovery of flood-affectees.
He said Pakistan is desirous of further improving its relations with America.
Speaking on the occasion, US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Armin Blome said we want to increase the economic cooperation with Pakistan. He said Pakistan is the larg-est export market.
It is pertinent to mention here that the White House issued a statement saying that both Modi and Biden “strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory un-der its control is used for launching terrorist attacks”.
“President Biden and Prime Minister Modi reiterated the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and Hizb-ul-Mujhahideen,” the joint state-ment had said.
In response to the statement “The US Deputy Chief of Mission was called to the Minis-try of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) this evening and a demarche was made to him regarding the June 22 US-India Joint Statement,” the foreign office spokesperson said in a statement.
Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif has inaugurated the Land Information and Management System (LIMS) – Center of Excellence aimed at enhancing food security, agri exports, as well as transforming millions of acres of uncultivated and low yield land across Pakistan.
“The objective of the establishment of Land Information and Management System (LIMS) is to increase food security and agricultural exports and reduce the burden on the national exchequer by reducing imports,” said a statement issued by the government. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir was also present at the occasion.
The ceremony was also attended by ministers of finance, defence, planning development & special initiative, national food security & research, information, chief secretaries of provincial governments, agricultural experts and senior army officials.
This state-of-the-art System will help optimise agricultural production through innovative technologies and sustainable precision agricultural practices based on agro-ecological potential of land, while ensuring well-being of rural communities and preservation of environment.
The GIS based LIMS will greatly improve the national agri yield by systemising digitisation of agriculture, providing real time information to local farmers about soil, crops, weather, water resource and pest monitoring through remote sensing and geospatial technologies as well as minimising the role of middlemen through efficient marketing system.
According to the world food programme, 36.9 percent of Pakistanis are food insecure and 18.3 percent face severe food crises.
Several projects are partnered with Saudi Arabia, China, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain, which will definitely increase Pakistan’s agriculture exports.
Similarly, new canals will be built to store flood water besides the latest irrigation techniques like modular drip irrigation, sprinkler and pivot irrigation will be implemented.
