AS the Government is making hectic efforts to revive the economy, it is encouraging that the Foreign Office, under the dynamic leadership of Ishaq Dar, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, is playing a lead role to help realize this cherished objective through its strategic shift towards economic diplomacy and geo-economics. Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, the Deputy PM recounted achievements of the government, led by PML(N), in the first 100 days in the realm of foreign affairs, proudly announcing that the country was no more diplomatically isolated and priority is being given to trade and investment.
There is no denying the fact that the Foreign Office, for understandable reasons, has long been focusing on economic diplomacy but the strategy has crystallized due to the rich economic background that the Minister brought with him for his new assignment. How a Government fared in the first one hundred days is considered as a symbolic yardstick for its performance but Mr. Dar has a reason to take pride for successful moves aimed at boosting trade and investment ties with several countries of interest to Pakistan, showing peace overtures to neighbours and floating proposals for bolstering relations with them. There have been significant moves to attract investment from China, Gulf countries and expand economic ties with the Central Asian Republics as has been confirmed from the outcome of high level visits to and from these regions. In a welcome development, the Deputy Prime Minister announced he would not seek loans from friendly countries and instead focus on direct investment and exports. Tangible progress towards these twin objectives has the potential to take care of economic and financial woes of the country and, therefore, it is hoped that the Minister would assign clear targets to all foreign missions of Pakistan and personally monitor progress for realization of these targets. We have been hearing for a long time about holding sluggish missions accountable but so far no visible change has been witnessed in their attitude vis-à-vis trade and investment facilitation as well as resolution of the problems facing overseas Pakistanis in their respective countries. As for pledges made for investment, similar announcements were also made in the past as well but we lacked on the follow up. In this backdrop, it was an encouraging announcement by the Minister that the investment of billions of dollars that have been offered was being worked on and the Prime Minister himself was monitoring these matters. He particularly mentioned UAE’s commitment to invest $10 billion in Pakistan, which is in addition to prior pledges. These and similar other pledges by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries would hopefully materialize as the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is instrumental in clearing road-blocks. We have also been emphasizing in these columns time and again that the success of Pakistan’s plans for consolidation of economic ties with Central Asian states and initiatives launched in the past for this purpose is directly linked to durable peace and security in Afghanistan. The issue of Afghanistan-based TTP elements has become a major obstacle in the smooth functioning of bilateral relations. The Deputy Prime Minister updated the Committee on diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan, particularly concerning security and health issues, following recent talks in Doha on the sidelines of a UN meeting and announced plans to visit Afghanistan soon to advance these discussions. China is playing a crucial role in the socio-economic development of Pakistan and with this in view the government is also focusing on addressing Beijing’s concerns about security and wellbeing of its citizens working on different projects in Pakistan. We hope this issue would be comprehensively addressed in close coordination with China and Afghanistan as its resolution could expedite implementation of the second phase of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It would also be in the fitness of things if the Foreign Office takes up the issue of manpower export with Gulf countries in right earnest.
