KARACHI : Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said on Monday that friendly relations between all the neighbouring countries are necessary to lift the people of the region out of poverty.
Improved relations with neighbouring countries are necessary to resolving disputes so that the country can develop, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that prolonged tensions between neighbours are not in anyone’s interest as differences are an obstacle to peace and progress.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that Pakistan should improve its relations with India, Iran and Afghanistan and increase cooperation with China so that the country’s image can be improved globally, tourism can be developed and foreign investors can be attracted.
Presently it is difficult to be able to do business in the risky Pakistani market which is barring national development, he said, adding that economic and financial performance cannot improve until local and international political affairs improve.
The business leader said that if the relations with the neighbouring countries improve, terrorism can end in Pakistan, which will allow the development projects to move on a faster pace, while the costs will also decrease.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the new government has to defeat poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and backwardness, while the tax system has to be balanced and the cost of energy has to be reduced,; the country’s exports and local production will suffer and we will have to import everything.
Huge loans will have to be taken to finance imports which is not sustainable, he observed.
He said that after the elections, the new government will have to accept the challenge of ensuring peace, development and economic prosperity.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that those who brought the country to this state have neither been properly identified nor are they being held accountable. The government’s commitment to increase exports to 100 billion dollars is feasible and laudable but it is not possible in the presence of current energy prices, their continuous increase and increasing dependence on direct taxes. He said that Export policy must be completely changed from top to bottom to increase exports.
