Upcoming budget: ‘More allocation for science and technology’

Minister says innovation is the key to economic competitiveness.

LAHORE:

To help Pakistan to join the club of technologically advanced nations, the finance ministry has planned more allocations in the upcoming budget for the science and technology sector, said Federal Minister of Science and Technology Mir Chengez Khan Jamali.

While speaking at the first technology exhibition at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Jamali said that low allocations in vital sectors like science and technology, had made the country dependent on the developed world.

He said that innovation was the key to economic competitiveness, and research institutions and researchers have to develop world-class technologies, in order to fill gaps in the sector.

According to Jamali, science and technology exhibitions provide a marketplace to showcase technological innovations and solutions in different industrial sectors.

LCCI Senior Vice President Sheikh Mohammad Arshad said that an immediate shift to research and development in food and agricultural sectors will lead to prosperity, saying that research was critical to economic growth.





Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2011.