ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday expressed solidarity with Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, over the Houthi militia attack on civilian facilities and condemned the attack.
The Prime Minister spoke on the telephone with the Crown Prince and condemned the terrorist attack by Houthi militia on civilian facilities in Abu Dhabi on 17 January. He expressed condolences to the families of all the victims and prayed for speedy recovery of the injured. He expressed solidarity with the leadership, government and people of the United Arab Emirates. He underlined that such attacks were not justified and stressed the need for an immediate end to these attacks, which continue to pose a serious threat to regional peace and security.
The Crown Prince thanked the Prime Minister for his support and condoled the death of a Pakistani national in the tragic incident.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said that the government is focusing on the development of big cities as they are the real engines of growth of the national economy. He said this while presiding over a meeting on planning for big cities here.
“Due to migration from rural to urban areas, cities are facing many challenges including housing, job opportunities and civic amenities. It is necessary to expedite the work on special development packages for big cities,” he said and directed the officials concerned to remove the hurdles in the way of priority completion of various development schemes in big cities. Take all possible measures for Provide maximum relief to the residents.
The Prime Minister directed the officials to work in close coordination and launch a concerted campaign for the upliftment and development of big cities like Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala.
The meeting was attended by Information Minister Ch Fawad Hussain, Industries Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar and Planning Minister Asad Umar. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, Punjab Governor Ch Muhammad Sarwar and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar via video link.
Meanwhile, the premier said that the government with the help of district administration has devised a comprehensive mechanism for distribution of urea fertilizer which will ensure availability of urea to the farmers at control rate. He said that the government is taking strict anti-smuggling and anti-hoarding measures to check illegal profiteering from urea distribution across the country, while the government in its three-year tenure has achieved a record urea production, which is more than 6.1 million tonnes. . 2018, it never crossed 5.5 million tonnes. “The increase in indigenous production has resulted in availability of urea to farmers at a rate five times cheaper than the prices in the international market,” he said.
The meeting was informed that during the three-year tenure of the government, the production of urea exceeded 6.1 million tonnes, 440,000 bags per day, never crossing 5.5 million tonnes, 370,000 bags per day before 2018. This was achieved due to the policies of the government, including uninterrupted supply of gas to urea plants. In addition, due to the Prime Minister's vision of prioritizing food security, a robust system has been put in place to monitor fertilizer supply and demand with continuous monitoring, thereby addressing the issues on a daily basis. Except Sindh, with 90% production and 23% verification, all other provinces have been ensuring verification on the PITB portal.
The meeting was attended by Federal Minister Shaukat Fayaz Tarin, Ch Fawad Hussain, Hammad Azhar, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar, Syed Fakhar-e-Imam, Minister of State Farooq Habib, SAPM Dr Shahbaz Gill, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema and stakeholders from the fertilizer industry.