The inflation rate has been brought down :PM Nawaz Sharif

Lahore: The Prime Minister said people were now getting loans from banks while the country had also witnessed major reduction in government’s borrowing from banks.

The inflation rate had been brought down while the foreign reserves had swelled. All the international rating companies were reporting all that, he added.

The Prime Minister dismissed the ‘sit-ins politics’ (dharna politics) and said if there were no such political moves, work on a number of projects would have started earlier which would have now been nearing completion.

He urged the people to ponder over the retrogressive ploys by certain elements, who wanted to clog the wheel of development.

Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervaiz Rashid, Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, Punjab Governor Rafiq Rajwana, Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, provincial cabinet members and high officials were present at the event.

The Prime Minister said farmers in the country felt the burden after rise in the international input prices and decline in production. Cognizant of their woes, he said the government launched a Rs 341 billion unparalleled relief package for the farmers, but certain elements also tried to block the same by indulging in negative politicking.”What will be the use of such politics which adversely affects the country’s development?” he asked.

Enumerating other vital uplift projects being executed through the length and breadth of the country, the Prime Minister said under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a number of development projects were underway.He said in hydel projects, Dasu and Diamer Bhasha dams would be completed. The Bhasha Dam for which the government had already paid Rs 100 billion for land acquisition, would become the major lifeline power project for the people of the country.

About construction of new road networks, he said Balloki would be linked with the Motorway while Lahore-Multan Road would be constructed on new alignment running upto Karachi. He also highlighted the significance of road networks linking Kasur-Gojra to Sumandri and Khanewal and Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi.

The Prime Minister lamented that if his government in the past had not been dislodged, the whole country would have been linked with the Central Asian countries through Motorway.

Completion of mega road networks linking Gwadar and Quetta with Peshawar up to Torkham and uplinking the Central Asian Republics, would now turn Pakistan into a great hub of business in the entire South Asia, he added.