Public private partnership: government planning to adopt Alaskan model, says Zardari

President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the key to Pakistan's economic development lay in trade and not in aid. He said this during briefing by the Advisory Panel of Economists of the Planning Commission at the Presidency on Tuesday.
Briefing the media about the meeting, the Spokesperson of the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the President exchanged ideas with the economists panel on a host of economic issues ranging from public private partnership, poverty alleviation, re-distribution of wealth, rehabilitation of internally displaced people and job creation.
The economists who participated in the meeting included Chairman of the Advisory Panel Dr Hafiz A. Pasha, Dr Rehana Siddiqui, Dr Akmal Hussain, Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Dr Naseer Ali Khan, Riazuddin and Qaiser Bangali.
Salman Faruqui, Secretary General to President, Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, Farrukh Qayyum, Secretary EAD and Ashraf M Hayat, Secretary Planning Commission also attended the meeting. The President said that efforts were afoot to persuade the international community particularly the US and the EU to allow greater market access to our products to boost employment and economic activity in the country.
The President informed the advisory panel that he had raised this matter during his visit to the US, UK and France with the leadership of these countries. He said that the British Prime Minister had even written a personal letter to the EU to take up this matter on priority basis at the forthcoming summit in Brussels on June 17. He said that President Sarkozi of France and the US leadership had also assured him of help to Pakistan in this matter.
The President said that vast tracts of state owned land was available in different parts of the country which lay unutilised but could be developed for agricultural purposes. He said that there was a rudimentary proposal to allot these state lands to poor rural women and develop these for farming on public private partnership basis.
The President advised the economists to study the proposal and make a workable plan for its implementation. President Asif Ali Zardari said that the government was planning to adopt the Alaskan model of public private partnership in which the people are made partners and stakeholders in a developmental project. He advised the economists to give a plan for further refining this concept in the context of Pakistan. He said militancy and extremism could be fought best by making the general public stakeholders in economic projects.