peshawar
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan has said that industrialization, exploitation of natural advantages of the province, widening the fiscal space of the province and green growth initiatives are the focus areas along with quality education and efficient healthcare in the province.
Presiding over a meeting of the provincial cabinet here at the Cabinet Room of the Civil Secretariat Peshawar, the Chief Minister directed to remove the weaknesses in the rapid industrialization in the province. This province has a bright future because the province has a clear direction to its destination. Provincial Ministers, Advisors to CM, Special Assistants, Chief Secretary and administrative secretaries attended the meeting. The cabinet took for debate the agenda items and made a number of decisions. We have to go with the focus approach in the focused areas to harness the natural advantages, different pockets of this province have with unique advantages and characteristics requiring attention to develop them and boost the cottage industries based on specific advantage of specific areas. We have already planned industrialization and certainly tourism will dominate the industrial sector having vast and varied potential to attract the tourists’ at large scale. He said that industrialization and the development of local economy in different pockets to integrate them into provincial and subsequently national development would certainly lead to job creation, improving the revenue base of the province, that will ensure a strong and stable provincial economy, he added.
Mahmood Khan said that mainstreaming the erstwhile FATA areas merged to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the infrastructure development there, integrating these areas in the green growth initiatives and developing their natural resources base are some of the challenges, his government was not oblivious to them. The provincial government would give them proper share in the green growth initiatives and asked the Environment Department to plan another billion tree tsunami for the next five years in order to reduce the negative impact of the environmental degradation. The federal government would provide equal share in the billion tree tsunami and he directed to have a transparent mechanism fulfilling all the codal formalities strictly following the laws in order to launch this mega project for the second time in the province with successful roadmap.
Mahmood Khan said this province is the most suitable destination for investment and his government has already directed to remove obstacles in facilitating investment and encouraging industrialization. He directed to bring recommendations to the next meeting of the provincial cabinet for new openings in the industrial, commercial and economic growth initiatives, assuring that his government has all the potentials not only to lead this province towards sustained economic growth but would make it sure that it is the most feasible federating unit with diversified resource generation potential, he added. He also directed the KPRA to improve the tax collection rate. He directed to immediately notify the Upper Chitral district adding that it was a promise of his previous government which should be fulfilled as expeditiously as possible. He assured his government would speed up the transfer of resources from the federation though negotiations and soon he would give a complete development package to all areas of the province.
