Business Recorder Islamabad
Published Date: Dec 11, 2013
Due to transparent policies no corruption case registered during 6-month: Ahsan
Minister for Planning and Development, Professor Ahsan Iqbal said on
Tuesday that due to transparent fiscal policies and zero tolerance for
malpractices no corruption case was reported during the six months of
the present government.
He was addressing the 16th Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Conference here at a local hotel today.
The
minister said that government was also determined to eradicate the
menace of corruption from the country for sustainable development and
socio- economic uplift of the country.
He said that government,
under its next five year development plan and vision-2025 introduced
seven points agenda to turn around the national economy and put it on
fast track growth by harnessing the available resources.
The
government, he said was focusing on energy security, human social
capital, creating indigenous resources besides modernizing
infrastructure for economic development of the country.
Ahsan
Iqbal said that special attention was paid to small and medium
enterprises as it works as engine of growth adding that transaction from
low quality to high quality products and further improving the
governance was the main thrust.
He further said that to strengthen
the industrial sector of the country and to enhance quality as well as
productivity of the sector, government has decided to celebrate 2014 as a
year of "Quality and Productivity".
The minister informed that
government was determined to ensure rule of law in the country adding
that due to supremacy of law all the agencies are made answerable before
the court of law.
Besides, he said that all political forces in
the country were also getting mature and issues like provincial autonomy
was addressed with complete consensus and the provinces were given more
constitutional and financial rights.
The minister said that with
trade globalization in the world, the regionalization was also emerging
and trade among the regional countries were rapidly growing.
Professor
Iqbal said that friendly bilateral relation between India and Pakistan
are vital to exploit the true trade potential of South Asian region for
benefiting the million of people.
During last 10 years, Pakistan
has taken several steps to improve bilateral relation with India but
unfortunately India has not responded positively and had adopted
Pakistan bashing policies in its recent general elections, he added.
Ahsan
Iqbal stressed the need for starting sports and cultural activities
besides enhancing people to people contacts for normalizing the
environment to restore peace process between the two countries.
The
minister also appreciated SDPI for its efforts in policy formulation by
engaging academia, civil society and media for sustainable development
of the country.
He expressed the hop that the event will come up
some concrete recommendations on different issues and challenges being
faced by the region in fighting poverty, hunger, illiteracy, health and
climate changes.