Abu Dhabi: Newly appointed Pakistani Ambassador Moazzam Ahmad Khan has chalked out a number of ambitious plans with a focus on providing better and affordable education facilities for the growing number of community students.
“One of my top priorities is to improve the plight of Pakistani schools across the UAE to make them viable, with affordable education centres for all community children,” Khan told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Pakistan Defence Day reception held in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
Khan, who took charge of his office last week, said that he would soon visit all the Pakistani schools and hold meetings with the board of governors with an aim to improve standards of schools.
A total of seven schools offering federal board curriculum of Pakistan operate in the UAE under the supervision of Pakistani missions. “I am also planning to bring some major private school groups from Pakistan to open schools in the UAE to meet the increasing demand from the growing number of Pakistani students,” Khan said.
According to the Pakistani Embassy, more than 1.4 million Pakistanis live in the UAE.
Khan, who served as ambassador to Netherlands before coming to the UAE, said improving trade ties between the UAE and Pakistan was also one of his top priorities. “The UAE and Pakistan are important trade partners and my aim is to further improve trade links and attract more UAE investors to Pakistan,” he added.
Khan said that his plans also include finding more job opportunities for Pakistanis in the UAE and offer better services to the community.
“We are facing a number of challenges at our missions especially in Dubai in term of accommodating huge number of applicants visiting the consulate to apply for ID cards, passports and attestation services,” he noted. On an average, more than 1,500 people visit the consulate in Dubai every day for consular services and this leads to huge rush and long queues.
He said they would soon start construction work to expand the existing building of the consulate to accommodate more people. He said he would also work on proposals to start mobile consular services to other emirates (Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Al Ain) to reduce rush at the main missions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “My main mission is to improve bilateral relations between the UAE and Pakistan and I am very optimistic about this for fundamentals of our relations are very strong,” Khan said.
“We are particularly proud of our multi-faceted defence and security relations with the UAE and Pakistan will continue to work closely with the UAE to further expand these relations to achieve peace, stability and security in the region,” he added.
The Pakistan Defence Day event, which is commemorated on September 6, was attended by a large number of diplomats, officials and community members.
Speaking on the occasion, Defence Attache’ of Pakistan in the UAE Air Commodore Mohammad Akhtar said the Defence Day is celebrated to recall the sacrifices, courage and bravery which the nation and its armed forces rendered from time to time in the defence of the motherland.
“Pakistan is facing challenges of terrorism and unconventional warfare for many years. Our efforts against terrorism, especially the Operation Zarb-e-Azb against terrorists, has played a significant role in regional and global peace and stability,” he said.
