Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said Pakistan must learn urban planning from China to tackle challenges like cities’ unplanned expansion and disparity in resource management arising out of rapid population growth.
“Our cities are expanding rapidly and this will eventually lead to issues such as food security, environment degradation and a gradual decrease of green areas,” said the Prime Minister at the launch ceremony of the Pak-China Business Investment Forum.
The prime minister said China had the knowledge, expertise, skill and know-how and had long ago resolved the cities’ expansion by switching from horizontal expansion to vertical development.
Pakistan, he said, lagged behind in that particular sector and our experts needed to learn this from them (their Chinese counterparts).
China switched to vertical development and saved their land for food development, he pointed out.
The premier said that he was scheduled to visit China next week, adding “however, the trip is tentative at the moment and subject to the COVID-19 situation,”
The prime minister said the trip, if it happens, would also focus on urban planning.
Earlier the Prime Minister launched the Pak-China Business Investment Forum, which according to the government officials, aimed at enhancing information exchange and promoting communication between businesses of the two countries, thereby opening up new avenues of cooperation.
The forum consists of 18 Chinese and 19 Pakistani companies and its objective is to promote sustainable investment, export industry and development of modern technology in Pakistan.
The forum has been formed with the collaboration of the Board of Investment (BoI) Pakistan and All Pakistan Chinese Enterprises.
The prime minister welcomed the initiative and hoped it would help promote enabling environment for business and investment.
In order to ensure sustainable development we need to enhance exports. How can a country progress when it was not into exports, asked the prime minister.
He said that a country could not progress until it sells goods to the world.
The prime minister said he was often told by foreign investors that Pakistan did not provide them ease of doing business or investment.
“It takes a lot of time from an agreement to its implementation here while the time is money for investors. He will turn away if no measures are taken for his facilitation.”
The prime minister noted that the Board of Investment (BoI) had been assigned the to address the problem.
We have taken a number of measures to do away with that cumbersome process in Pakistan, he said.
