Tarar For Enhanced Collaboration Between Public, Private Sector To Ensure Rapid Economic Development

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Apr, 2024) Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar on

Thursday stressed the need for enhanced collaboration between the

public and private sectors to fast track the process of economic

development of the country.

Addressing the First Pakistan Semiconductor Summit, he said that

the Special Investment Facilitation Council had been set up to attract

investment in Pakistan and ensure 'ease of doing business'. He said

it was main thrust of the government policy to encourage innovation

and investment in the country.

He said that Pakistan, as the fifth largest democracy in the world,

was endowed with great natural resources and its biggest resource was

its human resource. " We are blessed with a huge population of youth

which constitutes 68 per cent of its population". That is a huge

potential which we can offer to the world, he added.

He said Pakistan was strategically located at the crossroads of the world

which was a source of pride for the nation.

He said that the Government of Pakistan as a policy encouraged

innovation and investment in the country which this summit was

offering precisely - a collaboration between public and private

sector.

He said that the federal cabinet meeting on Wednesday had approved a

public private partnership policy framework to eventually facilitate investment

in the country.

He said that the job of the government was not only to regulate but

also facilitate investment. He said unfortunately sometimes

governments forgot their Primary responsibility as a facilitator which

hampered the investment.

He said that the government could fulfil this responsibility through collaboration

between public and private sector and by ensuring 'ease of doing business'.

He said that Pakistan has been producing 50,000 engineering graduates

every year and it has the best engineering universities in the world.

" Our engineering graduates are well placed globally but unfortunately

we are not able to reap the benefits of the semiconductor industry. It

is $ 550 billion industry at this moment with the projection of $ 1

Trillion by 2030."

Tarar said that Pakistan had great potential to deploy its human

resource in this industry.

The minister said that he was proud to inform that Shehbaz Sharif

during his stints as chief minister of the Punjab had attached great

importance to vocational training and skill development. From day one,

the priority of the PML-N was skill development of the youth.

"The manifesto of the political party that I represent, highlights the

importance of enhancing skills and placing importance on skill

development, on setting up institutes where skills training is imparted

to youth and this is the way forward", he remarked.

Expressing gratitude to Founder and CEO of GS Microelectronics (

GSME) Farhat Jahangir, he said he had done a great job by organising

this summit to bring public and private sectors together and bringing

members of esteemed universities of Pakistan under one roof for optimum

collaboration.

He urged the luminaries from leading universities to come up with workable solutions

and tangible proposals. He assured that the government would be on the forefront

in these endeavours.

Saying that several discussions have been held on semiconductor

business, he expressed the optimism that it would be from chip designing to

providing skill development to enhancing research in development and

planning,

He said Pakistan had a lot of expertise in skill development as well as

research and development, adding though research and development

was one area with regard to chip designing, Pakistan could contribute

immensely in this regard.

"I hope one day we may develop some capacity towards

manufacturing ( semiconductors) after a few years", he said. However

he said there was a need to set a direction, and set an objective and

goal,", adding experts in the summit who had spent decades in this field

could guide the way forward.

Thanking the forum for hosting the event, he hoped that collaboration

in this sector would continue and Pakistan could be linked with the

global economy. " This is something we need to emphasize and focus on

which will help our economy in a big way as the world is opening up",

he opined.

He said since coming to power this year, the present government had

received many delegations from abroad. " We just hosted a Saudi

Arabian delegation a few days ago and the Iranian President is due

next week, so there are a lot of positive activities ".

Attaullah Tarar said that economic indicators were positive and

international financial institutions and international financial

journals were unanimous that Pakistan had great potential for economic

development. " If we put our heart into it, the sky is the limit; and with good

intentions, we set on this path", he said.

He assured the participants that the government would not only provide

resources, but it would be at the beck and call to support the

semiconductor business in Pakistan.