Briefing the federal cabinet about his maiden official visit to China, Prime Minister Imran Khan has stated that this visit was more successful than expected and the host country has assured every kind of assistance to Pakistan. Following Chinese Premier meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chinese Vice FM Kong Xuanyou said two sides have made it clear in principle that Chinese government will give assistance to Pakistan to tide over the current economic difficulties. He said it is for the first time in the history of Pak-China bilateral relationship that the latter assured the former its full support in the agriculture sector. Chairing his first National Security Council meeting two days ago Prime Minister Imran Khan briefed top civil-military officials about his recent trip to China. Meanwhile Finance Minister Asad Umar has said that Pakistan has overcome an immediate balance of payment crisis. He expressed optimism that Pakistan would be able to stem over the balance of payment issue once and for all. He said that China has agreed to immediately provide financial support for Pakistan. He said that access to Chinese markets would also help double Pakistan’s exports in the current fiscal year, paving the way for long-term solution to the lingering balance payment issue of the country. It shows the government understands that industrial sector will need technological improvement, labor skill development and product innovations to become competitive in the international market. For human resource development, recruitment of young, capable and dedicated faculty will have to be made strictly on merit and honest educationist will have to be placed in the administrative positions. Moreover, research environment will have to be made conducive by providing state-of-the art equipment for laboratories and access to top notch research journals. For this purpose, the PTI government has made fundamental changes in the economic policy while criticizing the unbalanced policy of the previous government which was mainly focused on throwing the limited resources into the non-productive mega projects of building roads and metro bus run by massive subsidies. It is satisfying that the PTI government policy is focused on human resource development, increasing exports and elimination of corruption. It has given subsidy on gas, electricity to exports oriented private sector industries besides reducing electricity tariff on agriculture tube wells. In addition, the utility of currency swap arrangement with China, that is to say, the use of local currencies in trade between China and Pakistan would benefit the private sector as well as public sector as China offers subsidized exchange rate when the two countries trade in local currencies. We have firm belief that due to these measures for increase in the exports, by the end of current fiscal the exports from the country will be doubled.
Use of local currencies in trade between China and Pakistan would benefit the private sector.
