CPEC-related disinformation deserves deaf ears: Ahsan Iqbal

ISLAMABAD: Ahsan Iqbal, minister for planning, development and reforms, on Monday called on the people of Pakistan to give a deaf ear to anti China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) propaganda, terming it nothing but a bunch of lame excuses hatched by the development-phobic devil's advocates.

"God has given us a special gift in the form of the CPEC through our time-tested friend China. It is solely aimed at boosting country's economic development ", Ahsan Iqbal told media after inaugurating 'Centre of Excellence: Pakistan Planning and Management Institute' (PPMI).

“The anti-CPEC elements have embarked upon foreign-funded agenda to sabotage the mega project.”

Iqbal said China was a peaceful country, which had no other agenda than to extend economic activities throughout the region.

“Chinese investment will help enhance industrialisation and consequently create myriads of job opportunities for Pakistanis,” he added.
To a question, the minister said, in the upcoming budget, the government has significantly increased the allocation for higher education, health, and infrastructure sectors to facilitate the poor segments of society.

“The federal government is connecting far flung areas of the country to the mainstream through road network, which will increase economic activities of the underdeveloped areas,” Iqbal said.

Earlier, addressing the inaugural ceremony , the minister said Pakistan's economy had revived and was showing positive growth over the past four years.

“When the present government assumed charge in 2013, economy was struggling with stagnant growth, unsustainable fiscal and external deficits, flagging investment and crippling energy constraints," he said and added, "Concerted efforts of our economic team have restored economic stabilisation, peace, and security."

He observed the GDP growth rate of 5.3 percent, registered in 2016/17, was the highest in the past nine years.

“The government also managed to bring down the fiscal deficit from 8 percent to 3.6 percent (July-March 2016-17),” he said.

Similarly, he added, health coverage for every citizen was one of the top priorities of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), evident from the fact the government has allocated Rs56 billion for health and population welfare for next fiscal year (2017/18) compared to Rs30 billion in the current fiscal year (2016/17), up by 87 percent.

"For national health programme, Rs10 billion has been set aside for 2017/18, while another Rs9 billion has been earmarked for the construction of new hospitals," Iqbal said.
He maintained that ‘education for every child of the nation’ was the federal government’s foremost vision.

“In this regard, the allocation for education has been tremendously increased from Rs30 billion in 2016/17 to Rs47 billion in 2017/18, which is 57 percent more than the current fiscal year,” said he.