LAHORE: Federal Minister for Interior, Planning, Development & Reforms Prof. Ahsan Iqbal Saturday inaugurated first-ever NADRA Facilitation Desk for business community at LCCI. The LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid, Senior Vice President Khawaja Khawar Rashid, Vice President Zeshan Khalil, former office-bearers and Executive Committee Members were present on the occasion.
The NADRA Kiosk at LCCI is another great facility and it would meet needs of large number of businessmen in Lahore. Federal Minister said that establishment of NADRA Kiosk Center at LCCI is part of the government efforts to facilitate the business community.
Earlier, addressing the LCCI members, Prof. Ahsan Iqbal said that economic health of the country was frightening before 2013. He said Pakistan was considered the most dangerous country of the world due to terrorism and deteriorating law and order situation, and load shedding was 20 hours long while the industrial activity was badly hampered due to power shortage before 2013. He said that people were shifting from Karachi due to extortion and target killing. National anthem and flag hoisting was a crime in Balochistan before 2013. Economy was stagnant at 3% while IMF was predicting that Pakistan would be bankrupt in 2014.
He said that but situation quickly changed when PML-N government came into power and turned Pakistan into fast emerging economy. He said that PML-N government targeted four areas including energy, extremism, economy and education and achieved considerable success. He said World Economic Forum has declared Pakistan better than India as an emerging economy. He said that GDP growth reached to 5.3% in previous year while it expected that it would be around 6% at the end of ongoing year. He said that PML-N government has added 11,000 MW of electricity in the national grid. He said that investment in infrastructure development reached to Rs.413 billion. He said that Lahore-Multan road section will be completed by the end of 2018, Multan Sukkur section will be completed. He said that socio-economic development has given confidence to the people of Balochistan. He said that Karachi has become the city of lights again and about 100 closed industrial unis have been reopened that were closed due to bad law & order situation.
Prof. Ahsan Iqbal said that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would change the destiny of Pakistan, as the two countries were taking ahead the project to its next stages successfully. The Interior Minister added that today the world was focusing eyes on Pakistan besides terming it as an ideal country for foreign investment.
About China Pakistan Economic Corridor, Ahsan Iqbal said that this project is a game changer and it is playing a significant role in economic development of Pakistan. He said that massive investments under CPEC is further strengthening Pak-China friendship. He said CPEC is a national agenda and has been put into implementation in record time due to total
