Daily Times

Federal minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the new government would actively engage China to speed up various projects under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the country.

He said the top priority of the new coalition government was to strengthen the country’s economy as it was the only pre-requisite for any country’s sovereignty. Talking to media during his visit to National Center for Artificial Intelligence here at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), the minister said he inaugurated the Center in 2018 to prepare the youth according to the latest technologies in the world.

He said the youth the artificial intelligence, automatic robotic, big data cloud, cyber security, and applied mathematics were driver sectors of fourth generation industrial revolution, so that the youth could apply their skills globally.

In next few years, he said “we will train the 100,000 youth is these skills so that can become part of the global digital intelligence”.

He said it was unfortunate that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was neglected during the previous government. He expressed resolve to restore the autonomy of the Commission besides restoring the funding of HEC.

Replying to a question, the minister said the coalition government had not a full term of five years but still he termed the coalition government as a big blessing as it would be easy to build consensus over national reforms.

He said soon after the coalition government took the office of the government, country’s stock exchange showed positive response while the value of PKR also strengthened against US dollar.

Ahsan Iqbal said all parties of Balochistan were part of the government now so it was a big opportunity that the long standing issues of the province should be resolved amicably.

Responding to another question, the minister added that the government had formed a committee in the parliament to start the electoral reforms’ process.

“First we will make it sure that the electoral reforms are done and then we will think upon the new elections,” he said while responding to a question.

He said this was a constitutional requirement to complete the delimitation process and for this the ECP required around 6 to 7 months.