Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz lectures at AIT
Countries that succeed are those that know what they want, and are never
paranoid about new knowledge, argued the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, H.E. Shaukat Aziz (above), in a lecture held on at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) on the topic of 'Pakistan's Vision in the 21st Century'. 'Like people, developing countries must never feel threatened by new ideas, no matter where they originate. If they are open to challenging new ideas, most of the time they will be ahead of the game'.
The lecture, jointly organized by AIT and Thammasat University in collaboration with the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, was entitled 'Pakistan's
Vision in the 21st Century', and included a succinct presentation, followed by a
dialogue session with the audience.
The event was participated by the AIT and TU community, led by Prof. Mario T.
Tabucanon (above left), Acting President, and Associate Professor Dr. Siriporn Khampalikit (below, second from left), TU Vice Rector for General Administration Rangsit Campus. Also attending the
lecture were diplomatic corps and distinguished guests. Among them was H.E. Dr. Thanong Bidaya, Thailand's Minister of Commerce.
Mr Aziz started by noting that, as a founding member of the institute, Pakistan was proud to see that AIT had grown into a regional center of excellence for
learning. 'We in Pakistan admire the success of Thailand in building a modern, strong and tolerant country, an example to other developing countries'.
His lecture presented a vision of Pakistan in the 21st century as a progressive country of opportunity, building an environment of peaceful cooperation, with a
strong economy and a credible defense, able to leverage the strengths of the state for socio-economic development. 'There are tremendous lessons to be
learned from countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia as we look forward to an
era of shared prosperity'.
One example of a good idea from a country in the South was Thailand's 'One Tambon One Product' scheme, which would be adopted by Pakistan, adapted to local contexts, and launched. Another example, from Bangladesh, already borrowed from 'my good friend Professor Muhammad Yunus', who helped advice Pakistan on the implementation of a micro-credit scheme. To take advantage of new knowledge, nations need self-confidence and the ability to draw on their core values, good governance, transparency and a population with the capacity to think.
Pakistan in pursuit of its policy 'Vision East Asia' attaches high importance to its relations with the South and South East Asian countries on bilateral plane as well as with the Association - ASEAN at the regional platform. The sojourn to the four ASEAN states, including Thailand, was aimed at further deepening political and economic cooperation in diverse fields and in security matters.
H.E. Prime Minister Aziz (left) is welcomed with a garland from the students of the AIT Community School
The Prime Minister's delegation includes Industries and Production Minister Jahangir Khan Tareen, Food and Agriculture Minister Sikander Hayat Khan Bosan, Information Technology Minister Awis Ahmad Khan Leghari, Labour and Manpower Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Ports and Shipping Minister Babar Khan Ghauri, Science and Technology Minister Nouraiz Shakoor Khan, Tourism Minister Sayid Ghazi Gulab Jamal, Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, and Minister of State for the Interior Shahzad Waseem.
AIT has extensive and growing collaborations with Pakistan. Since 1959, more than 640 Pakistani men and women have completed graduate degrees at AIT, and the Ambassador of Pakistan to Thailand is a member of AIT's Board of Trustees. In August this year, the Higher Education (HEC) Commission will send 17 candidates on a 24-credit AIT fellowship. The candidates are faculty members from various academic institutions in Pakistan who will study at AIT in the different fields of study offered by AIT's School of Advanced Technologies. And for the January 2006 intake, 15 further candidates selected by HEC will join AIT's School of Environment, Resources and Development.
The HEC has also requested AIT's assistance in conducting a needs assessment for the six departments of the University of Baluchistan in June 2005. Based on the recommendations, the University would like to sign a MoU with AIT for assistance in human resource development and capacity building
Last month, AIT and the Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) signed an agreement on development cooperation. The formal agreement, covering the period 2005-2008, will provide for LCWU's human resource development and capacity building needs through AIT's masters and doctoral degree programs, and through short-term training.
In December 2004, the Executive Director of the Commission on Science and
Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), based in
Islamabad visited AIT to sign a MoU with AIT. COMSATS and AIT will organize a
seminar for the Secretaries of the 21 member states of COMSATS. The seminar is scheduled for later this year with the topic of the seminar as well dates to be
confirmed shortly.
AIT has also signed an MoU with the Peshawar University of Engineering and Technology (UET) for five doctoral degree students, to be funded by UET. Some
Institute fellowships will be provided to complement the UET scholarships
'Pakistan's Vision in the Twenty First Century' lecture
10 May 2005
Dismillah Hirahman Hiraheem, the Honorable Mir Bangulzai, Minister of Commerce of Thailand, Prof. Mario T. Tabucanon, Acting President of the Asian Institute of Technology, the Rector of the Thammasat University, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I feel really privileged to be in the midst of such an international gathering in an institution, which has a lot of history and linkages to Pakistan. In 1959, when this Institute started under the umbrella of SEATO at that time, this became the gathering place of many countries, nationals and students from all over Southeast Asia as far as Pakistan. I think Pakistan was the maximum east which SEATO included. It has developed into a center of learning and center of excellence and I feel it is a privilege for me to be in your midst today and talk about Pakistan and its vision for the future. I'm also very privileged to see people who are studying here because the students of today are the leaders of tomorrow and I must start by congratulating the Board and the Faculty of the Asian Institute of Technology for developing such an excellent reputation and excelling academically, excelling in producing quality people and I wish you well in the future.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. Let me say that at the outset, we in Pakistan take pride in our close friendship and cooperation between Pakistan and Thailand. My current visit which is covering several ASEAN countries is to strengthen bilateral ties, promote understanding of each others positions and build bridges of friendship, of trade, of investment and people to people contact. I've already held in Bangkok several useful discussions with the Prime Minister of Thailand, Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra and his colleagues. I've also had the privilege of having an audience with His Majesty the King. Our two countries share similar views on international issues and have similar aspirations for our region and for Asia. We have a common commitment to the promotion of peace and cooperation in Asia and to ensure a bright and prosperous future for our people. We greatly admire your success in Thailand in building an affluent, progressive, modern and tolerant society and has withheld splendid modernization with Thailand's rich culture and heritage. Thailand offers a worldly example for developing countries in their quest for economic progress and endeavors to address the challenges of hard times. The Thai leadership deserves rich tribute for consistently pursuing prudent and visionary policies that had benefited Thailand, its people and the region. The initiative taken by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to establish the ASEAN cooperation dialogue is unique as it aims at economic integration of all sub-regions of the Asian continent. Also committed to this call, Pakistan has made its contribution to advance the initiative by holding the Fourth ACD Ministerial Meeting in Islamabad last March. We were heartened by the level of participation which included the Prime Minister of China and my good friend Dr. Surakiat, who is the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand. The Islamabad declaration, which was issued after the ACD meeting made substantive recommendations for enhancing cooperation between Asian countries in energy, transportation, health, agriculture environment and the service sectors.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. Turning to the subject today, I would first begin with an overview of the regional and global situation as we perceived it on the event of the 21st Century. I'll then speak of the challenges that we face and our approach to address them and finally how we look at our region in the world, in the future and Pakistan's place in this context. Let me start, Ladies and Gentlemen, with an overview of the global situation. The last decade of the 20th Century witnessed momentous development with the end of the Cold War, collapse of the common economy represented by the Soviet system and the surge of freedom, democracy and free market. There was hope enunciated in the UN millennium summit declaration for the fresh beginning for humanity in a just and equitable world order. This optimism has since been tampered by a new realism. While the danger of global confrontation has receded, the world remains insecure with new threats of terrorism and emergence of new conflict as old disputes persist causing tension and suffering. There are also concerns over nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction. Globalization has span new challenges and opportunities in the world. The impact of the sweeping phenomena varies from region to region and from country to country. Economic disparities in the world have widened that could be a recipe for instability and uncertainty in the future. The world also saw the assertion of unilaterism and the weakening of the UN system. The experience of Iraq, however, has once again demonstrated the importance of the multilateral approach that must be strengthened. We are witnessing a new push for UN reforms. This must be decided with prudence and on the basis of consensus and to prevent divisions among the UN membership. On the brighter side the great transformation of the Asia Pacific region led by spectacular development of Southeast Asia and China as well as the emergence of new powerful trading blocks have set positive trends for socio-economic development across the globe.
Turning to the regional situation, Ladies and Gentlemen, our region specifically Pakistan's neighborhood, has remain disturbed mainly on two counts, the conflict of Afghanistan and the unresolved Kashmir dispute that has been a source of tension between Pakistan and India since the two countries became independent almost 50 years ago. Afghanistan became the last front of the Cold War for almost a decade since the Soviet intervention in 1979. However, with the exit of Soviet troops in 1989, the world attention shifted to Eastern Europe and then unraveled the Soviet Union. Afghanistan suffered international neglect. It remained mild in conflict with the situation, deteriorating from bad to worse. Pakistan suffered the consequences. Firstly, because of the emergence of Al-Qaeda that coalesced around the disaffected that are viewed brought into Pakistan a decade earlier and secondly, Pakistan was burdened with nearly 4 million Afghan refugees without international support for their sustenance. Following 9/11, when the world woke up to the new reality of terrorism, Pakistan became a front-line state in the fight against this new danger. We believe that terrorism must be rejected and countered forcefully as it threatens to destruct modern societies. However, along with local action against terrorist cells there is need to address the root causes that lie in unresolved disputes involving denial of rights to people, deprivation and poverty that breed extremism. A parallel of danger is implicit in the false notion of the clash of civilization specifically the West and Islam and tendency is to Malayan the Islamic faith. These prejudices must be rejected. Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and compassion and Islamic societies in the West haven't interacted and haven't seen each other through centuries. To promote understanding and inter-civilizational harmony, Pres. Musharraf has proposed his idea of enlightened moderation. On the one hand it extorts Muslim societies to reform and reject extremism. On the other hand, the West must facilitate solutions to problems that have caused deep pain and anxiety amongst Muslim societies.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I will briefly outline our efforts to address some of these external problems. On our Western borders, we in Pakistan have engaged the government of Pres. Karzai in Afghanistan and supported the Bonn process to restore normalcy and stability in Afghanistan. Our two countries are linked by common bonds of history, faith and culture. And Afghanistan at peace with itself is vital for the stability and economic progress of the entire region. I am confident that this objective will be expedited with enhanced assistance by the international community for rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. Despite our limited resources in Pakistan, were contributing to this process. We are also building an infrastructure and have constructed the Gwadar Port in Pakistan that would provide linkages between South Asia, Central Asia through Pakistan and Afghanistan. Gwadar Port would be the shortest access for Central Asian states to the Arabian Sea. We've also offered an energy corridor from Central Asia and the Middle
East through our territory to India. The realization of these projects will greatly benefit Pakistan, Afghanistan and the adjoining region. Ladies and Gentlemen, in South Asia we are working with India through the composite dialogue process to resolve all issues and ensure durable peace in the region. Pres. Musharraf's recent visit to New Delhi yielded important results and made progress on confidence building measures. Today, people to people contacts as well as economic and trades links are growing. The two countries have agreed to facilitate interaction between Kashmire's on both side of the line of control. Pakistan has also offered India secure energy corridor to bring gas from either Iran or Qatar or Turkmenistan into Pakistan and on through India. The improved relations offer unique opportunity that must be seized to resolve the Kashmir dispute that relates to the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people and therefore, cannot be sidetracked or washed away. Courage, sincerity and flexibility are required on part of both India and Pakistan to resolve issues and build a better future for their people. One consequence of the tension with India has been the development of a nuclear deterrence. Once India tested a nuclear device in 1998, we in Pakistan had no option but to demonstrate our capability. Any ambiguity in this regard could have led to dangerous miscalculations. In 2002, when India mobilized 1 million troops along our borders, nuclear deterrence came into play in the classic zones. The international community play a very active and positive role and reacted with alarm and pressed for the escalations of tensions. Now nuclear deterrence is indispensable in our security and is a factor of peace and stability in the region. However, we are opposed to an armsrace conventional or non-conventional. We maintain deterrence at the minimum credible level. We are also opposed to nuclear proliferation in any form and have developed a strong command and control system to protect our strategic assets.
Let me now turn to our vision of Pakistan and in that context to the greatest challenge we face which is socio-economic development reform and strengthening the political institutions in the country. This has been the overriding clarity of the government under the leadership of Pres. Musharraf which started 6 years ago. I also regard this as my primary responsibility as the Prime Minister of the country. Earlier as Finance Minister, I remain engaged with recovery, reform and restructuring of our economy. These efforts are germane to our vision of Pakistan set out by our funding Father Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He envisaged Pakistan as a progressive, tolerant, democratic, modern Islamic society that ensures peace, prosperity and security for its people and lives in harmony and friendship with other nations. In seeking to realize this vision our challenge has been domestic. Five years ago our situation was difficult compounded mainly by a collapsing economy and depressed social indicators. To turn the corner was not an easy task. The government had to take tough and even bitter decisions to improve the situation. Economic recovery, institutional reforms and good governance define the principal priorities. For economic recovery we pursued the two counts, strategy of ensuring macro-economic stability and introducing wide ranging structure reforms for self-sustainable growth. As a result after 6 years of reform and working on improving our economic situation, our GDP is growing. Last year, we grew at 6.4%, this year we are hoping to grow at around 71/2% and each sector within the economy, like manufacturing, is growing double digit at around 14%. Agriculture at 5 and services also showing robust grow. Our economic sovereignty has been restored, we have said goodbye to the IMF. We are borrowing only for development not for consumption and encouraging domestic and foreign investment in all sectors. Pakistan offers a level playing field to all investors. Anybody can come and buy properties, sell properties, set-up a factory, do whatever commercial activity they want without any restrictions. We are now moving to structure reforms of a second generation, which focus on strengthening institutions, improving industrial competitiveness, building a robust financial system and improving the country's physical and human infrastructure. Our political reform agenda include building of grassroots democratic structures, accountability and transparency to eradicate corruption and promotion of good governance. Democratic reforms included devolution to give power to grassroots level to vulnerable sections of the population especially guaranteed representation of women and minorities. You will be pleased to know that in our local government structure, one-third of the seats are reserved for women and this has had a major impact in involving women in every activity of the state. We proudly have more women in parliament than many developed countries and we are proud of it because no nation can develop unless the women are given an active role shoulder to shoulder with the men. Our print and electronic media is free, dynamic and influential and keep a good check and balance on the affairs of the government. The government also attached high priority to social sector reforms. Illiterate nations cannot progress and education is essential for countries to grow. We ensured a precedent input of resources for education, health, gender and poverty reduction programs. Pakistan's poverty reductions strategy is implemented in a composite manner on many fronts with active involvement of the government, civil society and the private sector. The fronts identified included accelerated economic growth, rural and urban development projects, micro-credit schemes and targeted interventions to help the poorest sections of the population.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Pakistan has seen the emergence of a middle class. This means that more and more people want better standard of living and the economy is growing and people are benefiting from it. At the same time the vulnerable segments of society who are living below the poverty line need targeted and special attention otherwise the gap between the haves and the have nots will broaden and deepen. So, that is what the government is trying to do to bring the minimum level of income up so that people can live or lead a life where the basic essentials are available to them.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are conscious of the fact that socio-economic development is central to our vision of the future Pakistan. To sustain economic growth and social progress we need a peaceful regional and international environment. We also realize that Pakistan needs to keep in step with global trends shaped by economic realities. We have already oriented our external policies to move with the spirit of the time. We want to build Pakistan into a dynamic economy of our region with modern agriculture, industry, sound education base and advancement in science and technology. We miss out on the Industrial revolution but we won't like to missed out on the Technological and Information revolution that how the engines of globalization in the present day world. This is an attainable goal as we have already put Pakistan on an upward projectory of growth and development. Today and tomorrow's Pakistan is a country of opportunity and promise. Externally, we seek a peaceful environment and cooperation that would help lifting the standards of living of our people and of all countries in the region. We desire attention for environment and durable peace established on the basis of respect for you and charter principles and resolution of all problems with mechanisms that optimize trust and capacity to resolve issues. We would like to see our regional groupings of SAARC, NECO, re-energized and made more effective. We would like to be part of the grand endeavor in our region to reach out to other regions and countries for closer cooperation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we see great hope in the economic transformation of Southeast Asia and the rest of Asia Pacific. For the first time, our distinct possibility is visible where the entire humanity can reap the advantages of development. We may well be at the watershed in human history where the trend set by Southeast and East Asia can lead to a break from the past where haves and have nots would get closer where development remain a zero someday. And again now, development would be equitable and give all people their basic needs. We can look forward to an era of shared prosperity for all regions and all societies. This is feasible provided our countries ensure good governance and give priority to economic development and move away from the politics of conflicts and disputes.
For any country to develop, ladies and gentlemen, statecraft requires it to focus on many important areas. These include the strong economy, a credible defense, acceptable security situation, a smooth political process, good governance and all these put together will then allow any government to leverage the strength of the state to get it to its true potential. That is the challenge we are fighting in Pakistan and every country is working on similar approaches. What we have to do is implement, transparently, implement better, add and develop our human capital and build capacity to meet the challenges which lie ahead of us.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the developed world and the emerging centers of globally economic part also have a responsibility to ensure equitable economic terms to allow space to the disadvantaged for accelerated growth and development. A future based on equity, justice and shared prosperity is within our grasp. This aspiration for a better future resonates with our vision for Pakistan and defines our new outlook and orientation as a society and a country.
Pakistan, ladies and gentlemen, is on the rise and I would like to invite all of you to join us in this journey for progress, peace and prosperity.
Thank you very much!