ISLAMABAD: Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Thursday that Vision-2025 promised a better living for everyone. He was addressing a seminar on ‘Poverty Estimation’ while co-chairing along with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. Ahsan said the issue of poverty estimation was lingering on since 2008 and various steps were taken to resolve this issue. “I soon after coming to the Planning Commission formed a technical committee to resolve the issue,” he said, adding head count poverty was computed in Pakistan in 2001 and since then the ground reality had changed altogether. According to 2001 data, he said current poverty is 9.3 percent and therefore it needs resetting. The minister said that capitalising on opportunity of resetting and bringing it in harmony with socioeconomic realties, development policies, and massive foreign investment, “we have decided to make some choices”. He said using 2013-2014 data, head count poverty came out to be 29.5 percent, while in monetary terms poverty line came out to be Rs 3,030 per adult per month. “Setting aside politics, this means that we are committing ourselves to a greater challenge because continuing with 2001 poverty line would have tagged roughly 20 million people as poor and resetting raises it to 60 million, so we are raising bar for ourselves. But we have decided to do so,” the minister added. He said this process would be made more and more transparent and it would be made sure that the micro data, computation method and relevant literature was made available to all researches so that this delay in head count poverty measurement should not happen again. “We also plan to make the resetting an ongoing feature when it gets substantiated that poverty number are losing relevance from development policies and ground realities,” he maintained. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that by re-setting the poverty threshold, the government was reaffirming its commitment to a sustainable and inclusive development path, which was aligned with its policy priorities and sustainable development goals. Highlighting some of the achievements of the government, he said that the present government merged stock exchanges into Pakistan Stock Exchange which was pending for the past 15 years. He said that due to efforts of the government, the country entered into international capital market after seven years while in international bond market after nine years period. The present government, he said entered into 3G and 4G spectrum and also resolved the long outstanding issue of net hydel profit of Khyber pakhtunkhwa (KP). Dar said that under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a comprehensive energy plan was evolved aiming at removing the darkness from the country. Under the policy, he said that 25,000MW energy projects were under process, adding that by 2018 March, 10,000MW of electricity would be added in the national grid. He added that government has signed agreements on importing Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) through a transparent process and as a result the industries were now getting gas and people have started getting jobs. The government, he said, has also increased funds for social safety net from Rs 40 billion to Rs 107 billion in a year. The Finance Minister highlighting China Pakistan He disclosed that due to investment friendly policies of the government, the Saudi Arabia has taken keen interest in making investments in energy, petrochemical and other areas while Qatar Investment Authority has also approached the government and indicated that they were keen to invest in Pakistan. In this connection, he said, a delegation form Qatar will be arriving on April 11. About tax collections, the minister said that last nine months have witnessed 20 percent growth Meanwhile, World Bank Country Director Pochumuthu Illangovan appreciated the government economic policies and assured support to Pakistan.