WASHINGTON: Pakistan is striving to embrace knowledge economy through a series of initiatives and reforms as part of Islamabad's 2025 vision that seeks to expand economic growth on sustainable and fast-paced trajectory, Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said.
Professor Iqbal said the PML(N) government is determined to benefit from applied research and collaboration of the public and private sectors as it endeavors to transform Pakistan into a knowledge economy.
"Knowledge is the basic driver of competitive economies,we in Pakistan have knowledge --- what we need to do is create an environment where we should be able to translate knowledge into implementable programs," he stated at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
"Our business is applied research to achieve development goals ---we have to fight poverty, bolster economy and generate jobs for our young population," he underscored.
He was confident that human resource development, value addition to agricultural products and cotton as well as focused work in science and technology fields, would help Pakistan go for a leapfrog jump in its annual exports from a current level of $ 25 billion to $ 100 billion.
Prof. Iqbal shared Pakistan's successful outlook in the field of information technology, saying that chief executive officers of companies told him in Silicon Valley that offshore operations in Pakistan are outperforming other operations around the world including in Bangalore, India because Pakistan has a large information technology skilled manpower. "The Pakistani young skilled information technology experts are second to none".
The government, he said, will encourage introduction of syllabi that help develop innovative thinking and creativity in place of traditional memorization practices.
He also revealed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would attend a consultative conference with more than 1500 experts in various fields as part of efforts to devise a comprehensive for consensus and collaborative action towards a strong economy.
David Spielman, a senior research fellow at IFPRI, earlier, spoke about the Institute's relationship with Pakistan including collaboration in 2011-2015 Pakistan Strategy Support Program.
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