Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday during a meeting decided to constitute an ‘Economic Outreach Apex Committee’ headed by his special assistant Dr Moeed Yousaf as focal person to further promote economic diplomacy.

For coordination among various relevant federal ministries, provincial departments and others and for achievement of targets, it was also decided to constitute an Economic Outreach Coordination Group’, Prime Minister Office Media Wing in a press release said. The important decisions were taken during the meeting chaired by the prime minister.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz, Minister for National Food Security Syed Fakhar Imam, Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Prime Minister’s advisors Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Abdul Razak Dawood, Prime Minister’s Special Assistants Dr Moeed Yousaf, Dr Faisal Sultan, Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, Board of Investment chairman, foreign secretary and other senior officials. During the meeting, a roadmap over local potential with respect to promotion of economic diplomacy, the existing challenges and the steps to overcome those issues, was also submitted before the prime minister.

The prime minister underlined the need to promote economic diplomacy and said it was need of the hour, because through it, they could not only further strengthen the bilateral ties with different foreign countries, but also fully explore the potential in the economic field. He directed that Pakistani embassies and missions abroad should fully focus on the promotion of this initiative. The prime minister also directed the Board of Investment chairman to ensure all possible facilities to foreign investors who were keen to invest in different sectors of the country.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan directed federal ministries to link all existing complaint management systems of government organisations with Pakistan Citizen Portal (PCP), a notification issued by the Prime Minister’s Office stated. According to the notification, initially, 33 grievance cells of federal ministries would be linked with the centralised complaint system.

Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit (PMDU) had been directed to determine modalities in consultation with all concerned organisations, chalk-out integration plans and get it completed within 60 days. Currently, a number of complaint cells/systems are operational under the federal government, the notification said. It added that there is a dire need to have a universal system with multi-faced integrated and connectivity features for a comprehensive and integrated global grievance redressal mechanism.

Under the new complaint system, confusion on part of the citizens due to multiple complaint cells would be avoided. All complaints would be processed in real-time. Manual processing of complaints would be avoided to possible level and citizens would get one window system-based information about the status of their complaints. The factor of neutrality and third party evaluation would also be there under the new system whereas duplication of complaints would be avoided which would save time and resources.

Prime Minister Imran Khan also directed formulation of an action plan based on time-lines for medium and long-term projects in the agricultural sector to increase production and modernization. Chairing a meeting to review reforms in the agricultural sector, including increasing agricultural production and addressing food security challenges, the prime minister called for special economic measures for processing of agricultural commodities.