Tide has been turned, Pakistan poised for takeoff: Ahsan Iqbal

Islamabad, April 03, 2014 (PPI-OT): “If we manage change proactively and develop superior capabilities to nurture new ideas, we can become a leading economy of Asia. Difference between human beings and animals is that humans constantly toil on breaking the status quo by bringing innovation, while in animal world there is no innovation.

Therefore, innovation holds key to success of nations. We need leaders at all levels who can unleash creativity and innovation”, said the Federal Minister for Planning Development and Reform, Prof, Ahsan Iqbal, while addressing “The Leaders Summit”. The Summit was chaired by Federal Minister, Prof, Ahsan Iqbal and was attended by more than 400 high profile business leaders, CEOs, parliamentarians, leading academicians and thought leaders from various countries which include Dr. Ebrahim Khalifa Al Dossary, President, Arab Management Association, Mr. Walid Irshad, President PTCL, Mr. Richard G. Olson, US Ambassador in Pakistan, Dr. Miftah Ismail, Special Assistant to PM, Mr. Ikram Sehgal, Chairman, Pathfinder Group, Ambassador Javed Malik, PM’s Special Envoy for Overseas Investment and Trade and many more.

Federal Minister, Prof. Ahsan Iqbal said, “Dichotomy exists in Pakistan’s development platform as it is a middle income country by economic indicators but in Social Development indicators it ranked among least developed countries in health, education, mortality rate of mother and children, drinking water supply and sanitation etc.

This dichotomy has arisen due to transfer of funds from social sectors to defense budget during military regimes which ruled the country for 35 years. In last 14 years governments followed policies which were status quo driven, sometimes contradictory in nature and at times catering exclusively to special vested interests rather than serving national economic objectives.

There was no long term planning, which has been the reason of accelerated development of China, Turkey, South Africa and Malaysia. Through our timely actions we have been successful to stop downward slide of Pakistan’s economy and the tide has been turned. Pakistan is now poised for takeoff.” Federal Minister further said, “We are at the final stage of the preparation of Vision 2025 and it will be a Vision for Pakistani nation and will form basis for next stage Vision 2047 to mark hundredth year of Pakistan as among top ten economies of the world. For maintaining national unity, we adopted the following speech of Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’ The first duty of a government is to maintain law and order and if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor’ as the mission statement”.

Many distinguished leaders, CEOs, parliamentarians, leading academicians, and thought leaders expressed their views in the Summit to inspire the participants to innovate, develop behave like leaders in every role they perform in their life.

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