Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said that the newly-launched Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) would propel growth in Pakistan\u2019s industrial and agricultural sectors adding that the army chief remains \u201ctotally dedicated to the cause of Pakistan\u201d. Addressing an award distributing ceremony among Chinese companies that rendered valuable services in CPEC projects in Pakistan, PM Shehbaz lauded the foreign investment. Terming SIFC as a \u2018great initiative\u2019, the prime minister said that SIFC includes representation from both federal and provincial governments. \u201cIt will include our institutions particularly the institution of Pakistan Army, lead by COAS General Asim Munir, who has personally contributed in this programme in a way that has no parallel in the past,\u201d he said. PM Shehbaz said the army chief remains \u201ctotally dedicated to the cause of Pakistan\u201d. \u201cSIFC will dovetail with this entire CPEC mechanism and will be a propeller in terms of Pakistan\u2019s industrial and agricultural progress,\u201d said PM Shehbaz. The prime minister lauded the role of Chinese leadership in times of economic hardships in Pakistan. \u201cIt is not wrong to conclude that Chinese companies and the government under the leadership of President Xi Jinping have contributed in a way unknown in recent history.\u201d He said the Chinese companies made more than $30 billion investment in different development projects in Pakistan, which is highly commendable. \u201cThey have transformed the economic landscape of Pakistan. Now we are entering into the second phase of CPEC, which boosts IT and green corridors, as well as Special Economic Zones (SEZs) i.e. Rashakai,\u201d said PM Shehbaz. The prime minister said these projects would be undertaken through B2B model, under the umbrella of Pakistan and China government. Addressing Chinese companies, the PM admitted that the companies have faced problems in Pakistan in the past. \u201cI can assure you, those times are over, we are entering into a new phase of cooperation between the two countries, we are streamlining and simplifying the procedures,\u201d he said. PM Shehbaz assured the Chinese investors that the difficult time for them was now over as \u201cWe are going to do this under one umbrella as a one window operation and this I mean in letter and spirit\u2026not just words but true implementation\u201d. Charge d\u2019affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan Pang Chunxue said since its launch in 2013, the CPEC being the pilot project of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) had made remarkable contributions to the socio-economic development of local people of the country. She said China would always stand firmly with Pakistan and work together to coordinate the country\u2019s development and security areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said that the newly-launched Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) would propel growth in Pakistan\u2019s industrial and agricultural sectors adding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8608,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}