Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal has said that economy of the country is showing improvement and the foreign exchange reserves will reach Rs $21 billion during current year. Addressing a news conference here he said that more 10,000 megawatt electricity would be added to the national grid by 2018 to overcome the energy crisis.
Ahsan Iqbal said: "We will not allow anyone to sabotage economic turnaround of Pakistan. Some elements are trying to launch negative campaign propagating that the country is going towards deterioration, but the country is inching towards prosperity." He said that some two years ago, the international media was describing the country as world's most dangerous place and economically sick but now positive news about Pakistan were there in the media.
He said the international institutions were now acknowledging Pakistan's economic progress. The minister said that all-out efforts were underway to overcome energy crisis. He expressed the hope that the government would be successful in producing more than 10000 megawatt electricity by 2018.
To a question, he said that law and order situation had improved a lot during last two years. He said that Pakistan Army played a remarkable role to curb terrorism in the country. The federal minister said that situation in Karachi was far better than it was two years ago. He said that Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah was leading the ongoing operation in Karachi, adding that the backbone of terrorists has been broken and now they are on the run.
Iqbal said that the situation in Balochistan had also improved a bit. He said that no doubt there were many problems, but 2015's Pakistan was far better than that of 2013. He said that the whole Balochistan province would benefit from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.
To a question about Nandipur power project, the minister said that the PPP government had launched this project and there were two options for PML-N government either abandon it or revive it. He added that the equipments of the project were lying at Karachi port. "Had we abandoned the project the contractor would have gone to international arbitration and we would have faced loss. So, we continue the project and spent Rs 58 billion on it," he added.
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