President Mamnoon Hussain on Wednesday stressed the need for promoting national harmony and close association among the provinces to foil nefarious designs against the country. "We Pakistanis, living in all federating units are brothers of each other and have to play our due role to make our country most respectable and developed among other countries of the world," he said while talking to journalists at the Governor House here.
President Mamnoon said the country is facing the challenges of terrorism and economy, and the government would steer it out of all crises. "The major need of the hour is to curb terrorism and restore peace in the country, as no foreign and local investment could be attracted to any region, without restoration of peace and maintenance of law and order," he said.
President said peace dialogues with Taliban were underway and these would bear fruits in the shape of restoration of peace. "All the issues that emerge across the world are resolved through dialogue and the power is used as the last option when dialogue fails," the President said.
He said there was need to take steps to bring improvement in national economy and added a better economy puts the country on track of development. "Presently, economy has got domination on politics globally. Thriving trade and industrialisation not only provide a large number of people with employment, but they also earn good name and respect for a country among all nations of the world," he said. President Mamnoon said that Governor Balochistan Muhammad Khan Achakzai, Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and other stakeholders had been given task to conduct peace talks with disgruntled Baloch nationalists to bring them into mainstream.
"Neglecting the problems of the province by previous governments created a sense of deprivation among the local people of Balochistan. However, I assure them that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government would not only protect the rights of people of Balochistan but it would also give them more funds for development than their share," he said.
Referring to Pak-China trade agreements, President Mamnoon said execution of project of 4,000 kilometres long road from Tashkent to Gwadar and then to Karachi, and lying of railway track along it would boost national economy. He said Balochistan would be the biggest beneficiary of these projects, adding Gwadar was going to become one of the important deep sea ports of the world. The ongoing power generation projects in collaboration with China would generate 22,000MW electricity in the country, he said. It would not only help in ending loadshedding, but would also enable the country to export electricity, he added.