National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser said that Pakistan believes in relations with the United States on equality basis. He was addressing the 1st Pakistan-US Business Opportunity Conference held in Islamabad on Monday. He said that the Parliament of Pakistan was committed to build strong parliamentary links with US, neighbouring countries and entire region to enhance cooperation on economic front. He assured that he will discuss the problems confronted by the business community with finance minister and commerce minister for their resolution. The speaker said that it has been widely acknowledged that national prosperity, sustainable development and quality of life of a common man heavily depends on the business fraternity working side by side with the government for bringing about a positive change and strengthening the economy. He said that despite all challenges, the business community of Pakistan has significantly contributed to the social-economic development of the country. He said that all the developmental challenges and national issues can be adequately tackled by taking an inclusive approach. The speaker said that due to flawed economic policies, political instability, chaos and horrific wave of terrorism, the national economy has been badly affected. “The terror hit areas of the country especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it is never easy to carry out routine business activity,” he added. He said that despite of all challenges, the country had managed a significant breakthrough on economic and political front as well as against terrorism. He said that the confidence of civilian leadership put in the efforts of our security forces, the war on terror had borne fruits and the business environment was reasonable and more conducive for local and international investment. NA Speaker Asad Qaiser said that due to changes in global economic landscape, the centre of gravity of world economy has shifted to emerging economies growing at a much faster pace. He said that encouraging regional integration and connectivity is one of the key pillars of Pakistan’s policy and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was the most promising element of this policy. He said that CPEC will help to end power outages in Pakistan and ensure connectivity between China, South Asia and Central Asia. He expressed his optimism that CPEC will open new vistas of development for Pakistan and entire region. The speaker said that despite tensed relations between Pakistan and the US, it was an encouraging sign that the volume of trade between the two countries had touched new height. He said that textile, tourism and agriculture industry have a huge untapped potential. He invited US investors to invest in Pakistan and assured all kind of facilitations and support to them. He hoped that bilateral business and investment ventures would help in the betterment of bilateral relations between the two countries. He urged upon the business chambers to play role of well established communications channel between the government and business community for broader interest of the country. Published in Daily Times, September 25th 2018.