Pakistan to emerge as new Asian Tiger: PM Nawaz

Prime Minister invites opposition to motorway tour

LAHORE: Rebuffing the opposition parties’ criticism of his government’s pet development initiatives, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has claimed that Pakistan will soon emerge as the new ‘Asian Tiger’ and will connect all the regional countries.

“In the next few years, Pakistan will emerge as a strong economy and regional power. It will be the new ‘Asian Tiger’ as the entire country will be connected with regional nations,” Nawaz said on Wednesday after reviewing pace of work on Lahore-Abdul Hakeem section of M-3 Motorway project in Nankana Sahib.

The PM invited the opposition to visit the network of roads and motorways and asked them to at least acknowledge the good work being done by the government. He said criticism was easy, but it required courage to admit the good work and its benefits for the masses.



Nawaz said politicians, who criticised development projects, were jeopardising future of the nation.

“Political forces, bashing the government for undertaking development projects, can’t affect the pace of progress,” he said, adding that opposition’s sit-ins were an effort to stop this progress.

He said the country’s youth had pinned hope on the PML-N government and opposition parties should not take away this hope. "Let progress and development continue at a fast pace and let the people of Pakistan reap the benefit," he said.

The PM said his government would continue to march ahead on the road to prosperity by undertaking huge development projects.  “We were neither afraid of the opposition in the past, nor will we be fearful of them in the future,” he said.

Nawaz said mega infrastructure projects – including motorways, expressways and highways – were being executed in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Gilgit Baltistan, which will make Pakistan an Asian Tiger.

The PM said the mega connectivity projects will also connect Pakistan with China and the Central Asian countries. “Central Asian states are landlocked and connectivity projects will help these countries access Gwadar port. This will benefit the economies of Pakistan and the Central Asian states,” he said.



 

Nawaz said the motorway would soon link Peshawar to Karachi with a six-lane high quality road. “No country in the region can boast such a road network,” he claimed.

He said earlier such projects used to continue for decades, but today things had changed and now the entire motorway projects are completed in just two years. “Speed and quality is being ensured in the projects. Now these roads have quality and life that will last several years,” he added.

Talking with reference to the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway, he said today the worth of asset had risen from Rs25 billion to Rs500 billion. “The worth of the national assets is multiplying rapidly,” he added.

Earlier, the National Highway Authority chairman briefed the PM about the motorway's M3 section, on which 44 per cent work has been completed.  He said the M3 was scheduled to be operational by March 2018, but efforts were under way to complete it earlier.

“The M-3 will connect with M-4 at Abdul Hakeem and provide an alternative and direct route from Lahore to Multan. The project will be completed with a cost of Rs148.654 billion.

“The structure at M-3 includes 8 interchanges, 8 bridges over roads, 35 bridges over canals, minor roads 60 underpasses, 201 cattle creeps and 705 culverts,” he said.