———- Urges ‘political harmony’ to achieve ambitious economic targets
———- Adds economic stability achieved with help of provinces, foreign partners
———- States “PML-N, coalition partners sacrificed politics for Pakistan”
———- FinMin says Pakistan heading towards stable growth
By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has rolled out the ambitious economic reforms package dubbed as “Uraan Pakistan,” aimed at boosting growth and improving lives of the masses.
The five-year National Economic Transformation plan aims to achieve sustainable export-led economic growth based on 5Es — exports, e-Pakistan, environment, energy, equity, and empowerment.
The event was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, federal ministers, Balochistan and KP governors, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, provincial ministers, dip-lomats, businessmen, and experts.
“Today is a great day,” PM Shehbaz said in his opening remarks while addressing the ceremony in Is-lamabad on Tuesday.
The premier said that they have just listen to a “remarkable and brillinat” narration from the finance minister, planning minister and deputy prime minister along way very informative presentation.
“The crux is that in the last nine months we negotiated huge challanges and difficulties and through untiring efforts of the federal government provincial governments and our international partners and friends, we have been able to achieve macro economic stability but this is just the beginning of a long journey which would entail sacrifice, blood and sweat to achieve ecnomic growth and finding our lost place among nations,” he added.
The premier stressed that this requires Pakistan to put its hands together and march forward with uni-ty of thought and action.
He also congratulated Ahsan Iqbal, Muhammad Aurangzeb and the entire federal cabinet and federal officials, sceretairies, SIFC, and provincial chief minsiters and the governments for their “great support and cooperation to carve out this homegrown programme.”
“During the journey from default to development and from stable economy to strong economy, we witnessed several phases and faced difficulties,” he said.
“When Pakistan was on the verge of collapse, we under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif, and our coali-tion partners agreed that they would sacrifice their politics for national interest,” he said.
In 2023, the prime minister said, when the government was making all-out efforts to secure an Inter-national Monetary Fund (IMF) programme but “letters were penned down for obstructing it”. Howev-er, he added, the goverment successfully acheived the IMF programme and the rest if history.
He noted that the government also secured another IMF programme, which he reiterated, would be the last of the country.
PM Shehbaz said that it was a moment to mull why the country had to resort to another IMF package, pointing out the losses of state-owned enterprises, the circular deficit and corruption.
Speaking of the “Uraan Pakistan” programme, the premier highlighted that having achieved macroe-conomic stability, the all-out focus would be on boosting growth through targeted investment and re-forms.
However, he said the success of the five-year plan which specifically focuses the development in IT, agriculture, exports and mining and mineral sectors was linked with national unity and political harmo-ny and collective efforts by all stakeholders, including political parties, institutions, and the people.
He vowed to make the focused efforts on increasing the annual investment in various sectors to $10 billion. Over the next five years, he said the government’s key priority will be to stimulate economic growth especially through exports, he added.
“The government has achieved the macro-economic stability due to teamwork of the federal cabinet, the deputy prime minister, provincial chief ministers, and the institutions,” he said adding he never experienced this kind of cooperation that he received from the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS).
He told the gathering that the government would create a conducive environment and incentivise the private sector to promote the export-oriented industry as the “export-led growth will be the pivot of Uraan Pakistan for being the ultimate savior for the Pakistan economy.”
He regretted that a huge chunk of the country’s resources went to waste annually due to corruption, leakages in electricity and gas, and lack of reforms in various sectors.
Similarly, he said the state-owned entities incurred losses of Rs6 trillion during the last one decade, while the electricity and gas sectors had circular debts of around two to three trillion rupees.
Highlighting the positive macroeconomic indicators he mentioned inflation eased to 5%, average ex-ports increase by 10%, a surge in remittances by 24%, and IT export boosted by 34% during last five months, besides the policy rate decline to 13%.
Calling “solar name of the game”, he emphasised the importance of clean and affordable energy sources and a special focus on solar energy.
He said Pakistan could regain its lost glory through self-introspection, learning lessons from past mis-takes, and marching forward as Team Pakistan with unity of thoughts and actions.
He also defended his government’s re-negotiation with independent power producers (IPPs) saying that it was time the elite class also sacrificed for the country.
