ZAHEER ABBASI
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday that growth in exports, industrialisation, and tourism is essential for foreign exchange that the country needed the most.
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony of Sialkot-Kharian motorway to be constructed under public private partnership (PPP), the prime minister said that the country required industrialisation for wealth creation for repayment of debt, and industrialisation can only happen through public private partnership. He asked the Ministry of Communication to straightaway come to him, if there are hurdles in public private partnership.
“We will remove hurdle in public private partnership,” he said adding that ease of doing business has been critical for the government to provide a congenial environment for the businesses. The public private partnership (PPP) is very important to bring about investment in the country, he said.
The prime minister said that 27 Lac vehicles went through Swat motorway on the Eid days, which reflect the importance of tourism. Tourism is a big sector and once the motorway is built it would increase enormously.
The motorways would further boost the tourism sector, focus on industries and tourism to raise dollars, and remove barriers to public-private partnerships, he said.
He said that construction of motorways like Swat could increase domestic and foreign tourism.
He said that Sialkot-Kharian motorway would be constructed in area that large in term of population and expected to increase more industrialisation.
He said that contraction of 100 kilometres difference with the construction of Sialkot-Sahiwal motorway would save foreign exchange owing to less consumption of petroleum products.
Earlier, Minister for Communication Murad Saeed said that the present government has constructed more roads during the last three years compared to the same tenure of previous government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
The PML-N constructed 625-km roads, whereas, the present government constructed 1,753 km roads in three years, he said.
Additionally, he claimed that the National; Highway Authority (NHA) revenue increased during the last three years, and e-procurement and e-bidding have been introduced.
