Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Tariq Azeem Khan on Thursday said that the present government's vibrant policies have resulted in stable economic achievements and today Pakistan stands conspicuous among the comity of nations.
He was talking to a 39-member Singapore Press Club goodwill delegation led by Narendra Agarwal here. The minister said that due to aggressive policies especially on the economic ones the country's GDP remained around 7 percent this year, and during last year it touched about 8.6 percent mark and the per capita income has doubled, he added.
Tariq Azeem said that a large chunk of our resources during the previous government's tenures went to repayment of foreign debts. But it has been brought down to 36 per cent of GDP now and a lot of these savings are diverted to uplift programmes, he added.
The minister also briefed them about Pakistan's foreign policy and said Pakistan wants friendly relations with all its neighbours. "The bold steps taken by government have helped restore peaceful atmosphere in the South Asia," he said, adding "The Composite Dialogue process and various Confidence Building Measures have removed environment of hostility and mistrust."
The Minister of State for Information said, "Pakistan wants a strong, stable and prosperous Afghanistan as it has always helped the later in the time of need." The massive exodus of Afghans soon after the Soviet invasion, Pakistan gave refugee to more than 5 million Afghans that caused enormous strains over its brittle economy at that time. "We provided them all facilities and never kept a check over their movements and business in the country," he added.
The minister that Pakistan is fighting a war on terror due to its own conviction and desire to put an end to the scourge of terrorism and extremism. "Pakistan has done enough as it manned about 80,000 troops on Pak-Afghan border in rough terrain, fencing the border and introduced biometrics system on Chaman crossing border point," the minister added.
Tariq said that about 700 soldiers lost their lives and hundreds were injured trying to flush out foreign terrorists from the tribal areas. "Even our President and Prime Minister survived terrorists attacks and the number of casualties suffered by our law enforcement agencies are larger than that of the allied forces deployed in Afghanistan," he added.
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