The Punjab Governor, Lieutenant-General Khalid Maqbool (Retd), has said that Kalabagh Dam will cause no loss to Sindh and all the provinces will be benefiting from its construction.
The decision of the President on Kalabagh Dam will be in the national interest, and he will keep in view the reservations of the provinces while taking a final decision in this direction, he said while talking to reporters at a surgical and medical instruments exhibition at a local hotel here on Sunday. The exhibition, 'Medika 2005' had been arranged by Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) in collaboration with surgical and medical instruments manufactures of Sialkot.
Asked whether Punjab had changed its stance by agreeing on exclusion of canals from the original design of Kalabagh Dam, the governor said that the President will keep in mind the interest of Punjab while taking a decision on the issue. "Whatever the decision is taken by the President, first of all it will be in supreme national interest and secondly, it will be in interest of the provinces," he added.
The construction of Kalabagh Dam will cause no loss to Sindh, he asserted, and added that millions of acres of land of Sindh will be irrigated. Moreover this project will also be benefiting Balochstan and NWFP provinces, he said.
Talking about the economic scenario, the governor said that the standard of industrial production in the country was improving.
Look at this exhibition, where an extensive range of surgical instruments from very simple instruments to dental chairs and other heavy equipment is on display. "However we still had a challenge of quality, which needs to be improved." He said that government will extend help to the surgical manufactures in improving the standard and quality of their products. He also asked universities to provide help and expertise to manufactures so as to improve the standard of their products. According to him, increase in exporters was the only way to bring prosperity in the country.
Earlier, addressing the function, the governor said that that economic development was the top most priority of the present government. In economic development exports are vital as they help in poverty alleviation and bringing prosperity.
Keeping in view this aspect, the government has announced a rational tariff policy and zero-rated many sectors, besides laying emphasis on infrastructure development, he pointed out. He claimed that result of this policy has been visible in a very short span of time. "There was a time when our exports were stuck up to only $8 billion and we saw no change in this figure for many years, but now we are close to $14 billion, which is expected to double in next 3-4 years," the governor said.
He also commended the business community of Sialkot for developing the surgical industry on their own and said that the government will help them in improving the quality of their production. He said that he will ask the University of Engineering and Technology to arrange courses for them to improve the skills of their workers.
He also announced that the Punjab government will hold a management course in a three months period for the surgical industry.
EPB Vice President Zafar Mahmood in his speech highlighted the problems of the industry and suggested ways and means for bringing improvement in it. He said that when he assumed the charge of his office some time back, he came to know that not only surgical exports were going down but the unit price was declining even rapidly.
According to him, the main reason for this decline was lack of co-ordination among various agencies. He said that aim for this seminar was to bring all the stakeholders together and find out the problem and their solution. "Marketing is another problem, we are faced with, and to overcome this we have contracted an EU agency and asked it to help us in boosting our exports."
He further said that EPB has also request this agency to hold a workshop for the exporters. Moreover EPB is going to hire consultants for boosting exports, the EPB vice chairman said.