100 Chinese companies opened offices in Pakistan in 2017: Ahsan Iqbal

Lahore: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiative Ahsan Iqbal has said that in 2017, on the directions of Chinese President Xi Jinping, more than 100 big Chinese companies opened their offices in Islamabad. Addressing the concluding ceremony of the 32nd Senior Management Course (SMC) and 117th National Management Course (NMC) held at the National Institute of Management here, he maintained that a big investment was expected at that time in the country but Pakistan could not capitalize on the opportunity.

“So those Chinese companies had closed their offices in Pakistan after allegations and derogatory behavior by the that time rulers,” he remarked.

The minister said that unfortunately, the country was still following the export policy of 1960 and not a single company in the Karachi Stock Exchange was doing export of more than US $10,000.

Iqbal mentioned that Angro and Fauji Foundation like companies were also not generating dollars. “We have to increase our export instead of depending upon the loans from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) or other friendly countries,” the minister contended.

He opined that the remittances should be increased from US $ 30 billion and around US $ 2 billion had to give to the estate enterprises.

He said that deficit of US $ 16 billion had to be faced just because of the Pakistan International Airlines. “There was an opportunity to reduce this deficit of 10 years after COVID-19, but the PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) had to face a big loss and all business shifted to the other foreign airlines,” he added.

Iqbal stressed that civil services should be modernised and bureaucrats should be given training on modern lines in three branches including Foreign Services, Finance and Economics and Media to run the country in a better way.

He underscored that the world was changing with each passing day and the country would have to change with the pace of the world’s developments to tackle these changes.

He suggested that a training school for bureaucrats like the National Defense University should be established in which education, training and research should be focused and a special certificate should be given to those bureaucrats who pass out from the school.

He contended that the best bureaucrats should be brought in the school as trainers and special approval should be obtained from the Ministry of Finance in this regard.

He proposed that modern education like artificial intelligence should also be taught to the bureaucracy. The minister said that bureaucrats should know how they could work for progress of the country.

He listed six suggestions for the purpose. Number one is introduction and implementation of peace and harmony in society and the second one was to provide regulatory to the governments by the bureaucracy.

The minister underlined that the current governing model is out-dated and only that bureaucrat would be serve the country successfully who would make a team by taking the community, business and society on board.

He emphasized that a good coordination among the interior, foreign, finance and other departments play a vital role in the country’s progress whereas it was observed that the officer of one department delayed the file of the other department.

He advised that bureaucrats to learn how to deal the public with pleasant gesture with an impact of pleasure for people, adding that people would give more taxes if they were happy with the government.

He said that the last and sixth suggestion was that the civil services personnel should learn new things and remain updated with the fresh knowledge, as the knowledge about everything gets outdated after every five to seven years.

He warned that the nation would be eliminated if it did not learn to live with the modern systems of the globe.

Iqbal highlighted that just recently ambassadors of all big developed countries used to ask where should they invest in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)?

He recalled that the country started producing 11,000 megawatts of electricity and advantage of billion dollars to the economy but the initiative was lost.

The minister said the development budget had been increased from Pakistani Rs 350 billion to Rs 1000 billion but later there were no funds for the development projects.