PM Khan’s major relief package widely appreciated by people: Chinese scholar

BEIJING, Mar 2 (APP): Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Wednesday said Prime Minister Imran Khan, over the last two days, had unveiled a major relief package to protect the masses from the impact of global inflationary trends, and an incentives package for promoting the industrial sector and strengthening the export-oriented industrial and manufacturing base.

Prof Cheng, also a former Chinese defence attache in Pakistan, in a statement said the PM’s speeches in that regard revealed his three ideas.

First, he said, was the concept of governing for the people that the PM had adhered to since he came to power.In the context of soaring global oil prices and soaring commodity price, the Pakistani government had announced Rs 10 per litre deduction in the petroleum prices, Rs 5 per unit cut in the electricity tariff and some other price cut measures.

The Pakistani government, he added, had also decided not to increase the prices of petrol and diesel as well as electricity tariff till the next budget.

“As we all know, the Pakistani government is not financially well-off, but the Imran Khan administration is tightening its belt and trying every means to alleviate the living difficulties for the people, who have been widely appreciated by the people,” Prof Cheng said.

The second, according to Prof Cheng’s observation, was the concept of development. Since PM Imran Khan came to power, he had been emphasizing the scientific development of social economy, and believed that the only way to eliminate poverty and improve the people’s well-being was to continuously promote rapid economic development.

“Therefore, whether it is foreign policy or domestic policy, the current government takes economic development as the central task. Under the guidance of Imran Khan’s development concept, Pakistan has made amazing achievements in economic development in recent years.

“In the fiscal year 2020-2021, Pakistan’s economy grew by 5.6% as verified by the World Bank. The remittances from overseas Pakistanis rose to $ 31 billion and foreign exchange reserves reached $ 23.2 billion, while recording the highest level of exports.”

The third, Cheng said, was the concept of self-reliance. “To this end, PM Imran Khan has particularly emphasized agricultural modernization, national industrialization, economic digitization and the intellectualization of young people.

“The Pakistani government is well aware that only when its economic strength is strong, can it get rid of the control of the western monopoly capital and realize the true independence of the nation.”

Prof Cheng believed that under the influence of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the spillover effect of China’s economic development on Pakistan, the current Pakistani government had discovered a development path suited to its national conditions, and social and economic development had entered the right track.