Ahsan Iqbal calls for liberal visa regime between Pak-India

  • March 18, 2014, 7:38 pm
  • National News
  • 96 Views

Lahore, Mar 18 (Online): Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform has stated that regional connectivity, resolution of disputes, and strong economic coordination between neighboring countries can turn the fortunes of South Asia.

While delivering a key note address at the 3rd Annual South Asia Growth Conference today here in Lahore, Prof. Ahsan Iqbal stressed the need to take immediate actions to address the immediate problems facing the region, which is lagging behind other regions of the world in development.
He said that new PM Sharif government has economic focus and it took immediate action to address the prevalent energy crisis after coming into power and remarked that the energy sector was showing some signs of progress. Similarly, the Minister said that the government had taken steps to curtail losses from state owned enterprises, curbing subsidies with the consequence that the deficit, which reached a maximum of 9% of GDP, was reduced.

The Minister spoke of the need of reforms in the civil services and in particular tax revenue. He stated, “Identification and hiring of competent and honest officers is a must and we are vying to have a performance-driven public service.

He also addressed the issue of bringing reforms in tax collection mechanism. The Minister said, “Bringing reforms in tax services will help the government to raise the GDP to tax ratio from 9 to 14%.”

Most prominent among reforms in the civil service include a revamping of the Planning Commission into the Ministry of Planning, Development & Reforms. Ministry of PDR is working through collaborative networks of experts, academia, private sector in order to create synergy and team work in planning. Minister bemoaned the lack of planning and reforms during previous regimes, which produced energy crisis.

Speaking in more detail regarding the need for well informed and organized planning and development, the Minister Prof. Ahsan Iqbal informed the audience of Vision 2025, a 12 years development plan forged with extensive consultation with many stakeholders, including those in the corporate and finance sectors, civil society as well as academic and research institutions. The Minister terms the vision as a ‘buy-in’ of all important stakeholders.

The Minister apprised the audience of the seven pillars of Vision of 2025 which will lead to a better and strong Pakistan. According to Prof. Ahsan Iqbal, the seven pillars include developing world class human and social capital, sustained and inclusive growth, modernization of public sector, focus of food, water and energy security, value addition in domestic production, infrastructure development as driver of growth and sustainable growth in small and medium enterprises. He said, “People have to be at the heart of economic planning because future depends on quality of human resource any nation possesses. We suffer from socio-economic imbalance, our economic indicators make us middle income country but our social indicators put us among least developed countries. We are putting people first in our development agenda.”

Federal Minister also urged the delegates from India attending the conference to work for greater bilateral cooperation between India and Pakistan. The minister said, “It is about time Pakistan & India open up to each other on a bilateral basis. If Pakistan & India are cooperating, the whole region will reap dividends from the cooperation. Pakistan has taken number of initiatives but those haven’t been reciprocated. We hope India will agree on liberal visa regime and provide access to Pakistani channels access to Indian viewers.”

Replying to a question Minister said, “After eighteenth amendment there is a need to forge a new partnership between centre and provinces so that progress in social sectors can be effectively coordinated across provinces in order to accelerate achievement of national development goals.”

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