ISLAMABAD: Special assistant to Prime Minister on information and broadcasting Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa (retd) on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for the government’s focus on the uplift of areas that were previously neglected.

In a Twitter post, Bajwa, who also heads the CPEC Authority, said out of the 18 approved border markets, three, including Mand and Gabd to be set up in Balochistan and Shaheedano Dand in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have been approved as a pilot project. These markets will transform local economies, check smuggling and formalise trade with neighbouring countries, he maintained.

On September 17, Prime Minister Imran Khan had accorded approval to set up trade markets along Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan and Iran. Presiding over a high-level meeting in Islamabad, the PM gave approval to establish 12 markets along Pak-Afghan border and six markets along Pak-Iran border. The meeting decided to take effective measures to eliminate the menace of smuggling. Briefing the meeting, an official said that the border markets will be made functional by February, 2021.