China has set an example by dragging 700 million people out of poverty: Pakistani Minister

Faisalabad: China has set an example for Pakistan to alleviate poverty by dragging 700 million poor people into the mainstream, a Pakistan minister said.

State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib highlighted that China had achieved a huge success by dragging 700 million people from poverty.

“We can also do this by enhancing our exports and creating maximum job opportunities for the unemployed workers,” he asserted while inaugurating a gloves factory in Allama Iqbal Special Economic Zone of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) near Sahianwala.

Habib indicated that Pakistan’s agriculture sector was growing at a much faster pace while the growth stood at 4 percent. “Our focus is to incentivise local and international investors. In this connection, three special economic zones are being developed including Allama Iqbal Special Economic Zone under CPEC. Allama Iqbal Special Economic Zone is fully equipped with latest facilities and a dedicated grid station was also approved it besides supplying gas to this zone,” he pointed out.

The minister mentioned that due to the special interest of Prime Minister Imran Khan, work on CPEC SEZs had been expedited. “Policies are being carved out in consultation with the industrialists which are yielding positive results,” he added.

Habib hoped that the new gloves factory – built as a joint venture with Germany – was also an export-oriented project which will not only enhance the exports but also attract other investors to come to Faisalabad and launch joint ventures on the same pattern.

Habib said that Pakistan has become heaven for new investment due to the policies of the government and various countries were launching joint ventures with their Pakistani counterparts.

He observed that the coronavirus pandemic had hit hard the business but the economic growth in Pakistan continued to rise. “Our core issues are foreign loans and to overcome it we had only two options. One was that expatriate Pakistanis should deposit maximum remittance to Pakistan. They did this job and remittances stood at 30 billion US dollars. Similarly, we should concentrate on enhancing our exports for which government was consulting industrialists and providing them best possible facilities within the given circumstances,” the minister stressed.