Army draws strength from people: COAS

LAHORE: Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa has said the Pakistan Army draws its strength from people and any effort to drive a wedge between the two would not be tolerated.

He said, "The hostile forces have been trying this for a long time, but they won’t succeed, Insha Allah." The army chief stated this in his interaction with the garrison officers and veterans in two separate interactive sessions over the weekend.

He said misinformation and propaganda threatens the state's integrity, which requires timely and unified response to effectively counter speculation and rumours. Earlier, Corps Commander Lt Gen Muhammad Abdul Aziz received the army chief when he arrived in the garrison.

Gen Bajwa appreciated the Lahore Corps for maintaining high standards of operational preparedness and training. Gen Bajwa also attended an Iftar-dinner hosted by Mian Gohar Ejaz, a textile and real estate tycoon, at his Model Town Lahore residence. The owners of around 20 major business houses also attended the dinner over the weekend.

Addressing the gathering, the army chief urged the business community to earn money, but asserted that they should also be timely paying their taxes to keep the wheel of economy running. Gen Bajwa motivated the businesspersons to play their role in building the national economy through export-led growth, so that the country could earn the much-needed foreign exchange reserves.

“Exports are the backbone of the country. The former Soviet Union had fallen in 1991 due to an economic failure. It was not a military debacle as is commonly understood by some. We have to make our economy stronger through an export-led strategy,” he observed.

He was of the view that the national security was interlinked with economic salvation, and hence stressed upon the businessmen present to diversify with a special focus on Information Technology.

Gen Bajwa remained with the dinner participants for two and a half hours, and candidly answered their queries, reassuring them of all the desired support. On October 3, 2019, heads of the country’s leading business houses had also called on Gen Bajwa to convey their serious concerns about the country’s stagnating economy.

During the course of that particular meeting, as archives reveal, the business community had expressed its concerns about stagflation, the depleting Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and the resultant halt in economic activities.