Pakistan has started journey of progress after coming out of default risk: PM Shehbaz Sharif
KARACHI (92 News) - Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has started the journey of progress after coming out of the default risk.
Addressing a ceremony after distributing laptops among the students on Wednesday, he said that the government tenure is completing the next month. "The new government will come into the power through the public mandate. We have to groom the skills of the youth. We along with the province will distribute one million laptops among students if the people gave us the next chance," he declared.
APP adds: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said youths from across the country needed to be equipped with education and provided maximum resources for country’s swift progress.
Mentioning the launch of the capital venture initiative for freelancers on Tuesday, he lauded the youngsters’ talent for developing the projects like converting banana peels into different products and drones for agricultural use.
He said it would be sheer injustice if the talented youths were not provided with the required resources as they were the guarantee for the country’s prosperity.
The prime minister said the incumbent government was in the process of distributing 100,000 laptops announced for the fiscal 2022-23 while the provision for another 100,000 laptops had been made in the budget 2023-24 which would be distributed purely on merit, without any nepotism.
Prime Minister Shehbaz said the caretaker government should also ensure the merit in laptops’ distribution keeping the excellence and enrollment in public sector universities as the only merit. He said through hand-holding, the talented youths could bring in billions of dollars to the country within a short span of time which other industries could not do.
He also thanked the commercial banks for distributing Rs30 billion among youth within a few months in the form of business loans.
Calling the existing volume of loans insufficient, he called for formulating a policy to make it mandatory for the banks to extend loan facilities to youth, farmers, and small shopkeepers. He said the previous government gave away US$3 billion in loans to business tycoons without thinking of the youngsters.
Prime Minister Shehbaz also called for national unity and concerted efforts to rid the country of poverty as a robust mechanism in the form of a Special Investment Facilitation Council had already been established with a view to putting the country on the course towards economic restructuring and reforms.
He said the country could never progress without curbing corruption, power, and gas theft. He said the SIFC would take the country to the destination that the forefathers had dreamt of.
The prime minister appreciated the Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah for carrying out youth welfare projects and Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori for arranging courses for the youngsters at the Governor's House.
He also thanked Minister for IT and Telecommunications Syed Aminul Haq for his hard work in the ministry to move the projects forward as well as SAPM Shaza Fatima Khawaja.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said the Sindh government was also executing similar projects for youth’s welfare in the province. He said 70pc of the beneficiaries of laptop and business loans were women as the provincial government strongly believed in women’s empowerment.
He told the gathering that through the public-private partnership, the provincial government would establish a Technology Park at NED University that would cost Rs 25 billion.
