Building a world class infrastructure

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's speech at the groundbreaking ceremony of a five-star hotel in Islamabad on Monday was reflective both of the existing deficiencies and the promise of a better future when he observed that Pakistan requires a strong and world class infrastructure.
Pointing out that the country's location at the crossroads of Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East offers a lot of attractions for tourists as well as investors, he talked of various up and coming connectivity projects. He claimed that with several technical companies and IT parks operating in Islamabad, the federal capital is fast turning into an IT capital as well.
The city, the Prime Minister went on, will soon have an international standard airport, which would be connected with the Motorway, and that more airlines would be allowed to operate in the country. However, all this is to happen sometime in the future.
Like provision of basic education healthcare facilities, the responsibility for infrastructure development falls squarely on the governmental shoulders. Connectivity whether via air, road or railway, telephone or internet, power lines or gas pipelines, as well as irrigation network is the key ingredient of any plan for socio-economic development.
There is a lot that remains to be done in this regard. To name but two examples, the railways and canal networks, on which depends so much of our agro-based economic activity, are much the same as they existed at the time of the country's independence 59 years ago.
Meanwhile, a place like Dubai, that possesses no worthwhile natural resources of its own, has come from far behind to emerge as a bustling hub of business and trade. Boasting the region's largest transport infrastructure, it has turned into a major re-export centre, supplying technical equipment, food stuffs and luxury items worth around $14 billion to its Middle Eastern neighbours as well as countries in South Asia and Central Asia and as far a field as South Africa.
More than 100 shipping lines call on its ports and an equal number of international airlines operate out of its airports. Small wonder then if it has become the envy of so many countries, including our own.
Pakistan has vibrant agriculture and manufacturing sectors, and is eager to serve as a business and commerce conduit between the land-locked, resource-rich Central Asian republics as well as China on one side and the Middle East, South Asia, and the region beyond on the other side.
China is also said to be interested in importing oil from Africa via Pakistan's proposed energy transportation channel, which is 20,000 km shorter than the alternative route, and can cut transportation expenses by 25 percent and time by more than one month.
Thus Pakistan can do even better than Dubai if it acts fast to back its ambitions with matching on-the-ground infrastructure facilities. Indeed, road, railway and sea port projects are afoot to link these regions via transport and energy corridors that this country is uniquely placed to offer.
Other infrastructure facilities such as uninterrupted power supplies, telephone and internet links, as well as airports must also qualify to be rated as world class. Only then can we hope to exploit the full potential of the opportunities that are there to be seized.