According to newspaper reports, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed the government’s resolve to strengthen economic ties with the United States. Pakistan and the United States are politically aligned countries with hot and cold relations on several occasions in the past. When economy is the base of everything, the US administration should have to concentrate on trade and not aid with Pakistan if it wants close relations with Islamabad. Though the United States has granted billions of dollars aid to Pakistan, relations between the two countries passed through ups and downs as well as mistrust and suspicions. A friendship based on trade relations will be stronger than otherwise based on political level. Pakistan’s IT sector is better than India, but it is given little attention from the US partners. The basic thing is to establish people to people contacts which have been absent despite political relations.
In his addressto Pakistan-US Economic Partnership program in Islamabad,the prime minister referred to the country’s traditional relations with US which constitute an important component of the Pakistan’s foreign policy.The Pak-US relations have been robust and wide-ranging for the last six decades and Pakistan offers huge opportunities of investment in different sectors of the economy as well as in environment field. The world financial institutions havepointed out that Pakistan will make economic progress during coming years while democracy is also strengthening.Pakistan’s judiciary and media are independent are functioning free from the government interference.
The prime minister also says that the country has achieved economic gains in the face of grave challenges of energy shortages and violent extremism and that the government attaches the highest priority to the energy sector.The US is a valuable partner in Pakistan’s quest for energy security.
The present government has added more than 1,700 megawatts in the system while work is in progress on several major hydropower and hydrocarbon projects. The energy crisis has destabilised the industrial and trade sector as the previous government had ignored to launch new projects to generate electricity.
Since the United States started war on terror, Pakistani economy incurred billions of dollars loss and cost of human loss is innumerous. What the leadership of the two countries has to do is to establish joint businesses and the US firms should open their offices in Pakistani cities to consolidate the economic relations. The prime minister pointed out the menace of terrorism which he said will be fought back at any rate.
