LAHORE: Federal Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Sunday that in 2013, Pakistan was declared weakest economy but after coming into power, the PML-N government turned it into fast emerging economy in the world in last four years.
He was addressing the 1st International Youth Summit organized here by University of Lahore. Ahsan Iqbal said the country’s economy had collapsed in year 2013 when no one was ready to invest in Pakistan, but now it was making progress.
He hoped that if it continued to progress at the current pace, the country would be among the world’s twenty largest economies by 2025. All economic indicators were showing positive improvements, he added.
Consistency in economic policies was indispensable for the progress of the country, he said while predicting that Asia would be contributing 52 percent in the world GDP by 2050.
He elaborated that Asia, South Asia, Central Asian states and China were engines of economic growth, and Pakistan was situated at the crossroad of these engines of growth. In this context, he said, Pakistan would have to get optimum benefit of its geographical location for which political stability and peace were of immense importance.
Ahsan Iqbal was of the view that this age was of innovation and disruption where changes took place frequently, and “we need to develop ourselves as per requirements of the world because the nature of today’s challenges is global and challenges have no boundaries.”
The federal minister said leaders were those who had clear vision and sense of purpose and goal. The leaders were good communicators and their constant liaison with people was very important.
Ahsan Iqbal said global warming was affecting the entire world and all the countries must collaborate and communicate with each other on all global challenges including the menace of terrorism.
He mentioned that current phenomenon of smog in Lahore and other cities was mainly due to activities in Indian Punjab, which were affecting the regional environmental pattern.
