ISLAMABAD: On Monday, with the opposition in arms against the government over the lack of some food goods and the rise in costs, PM Imran Khan ordered the responsible authorities to ensure tight supervision and timely access to all food basket commodities.
PM Mr. Khan attacked his economic team for failing to resolve the crisis that gave an opening for the opposition to launch charges against the government.
Mr Khan met with Minister of National Food Security Syed Fakhar Imam, according to the PM Office, and got a thorough briefing on the supply, scarcity and prices of food products.
The meeting also addressed subjects relating to the adoption of new seed technologies and its role in improving productivity.
The prime minister voiced frustration at his economic team at a separate meeting for not solving the situation and failing to notify people of the government’s successes in resolving the crisis.
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“The prime minister shared his frustration with the food and inflation crisis and was of the opinion that his economic team had so far struggled to have a robust response to the criticisms of the opposition,” Dawn told a meeting member, who did not want to be identified.
He said the prime minister asked his team to go to the media to remind people of the government’s measures taken so far to resolve the scarcity of basic foodstuffs, such as wheat flour and sugar, hoarding, inflation, and the global market effect.
PM Khan instructed his team to use all its resources, including those directly impacting the people, to tackle economic problems. The source said the meeting addressed the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement ‘s campaign and means of combating it, adding that the Prime Minister asked the representatives of Pakistan’s Tehreek-i-Insaf to step up the election campaign of the group in Gilgit-Baltistan.
PM Imran to participate in SCO summit
Prime Minister Khan will participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) virtual summit on Tuesday (today), the Foreign Office (FO) said in a tweet.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the conference of the Council of Heads of State (SCO-CHS), which is the highest forum of the eight-member political and security bloc, has been convened for essentially the first time since its inception almost 20 years ago.
The session will be attended by officials from all eight SCO member states: China , India, Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as four observer states: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.
Other members will be UN Secretary General António Guterres and SCO Secretary General Vladimir Norov.
The 16 documents, including the Moscow Declaration, will be accepted at the end of the summit, the FO said.
These documents and declarations, which would set the bloc’s goals for the future, would represent “the role of the Member States on key regional and international issues,” it continued.
In an earlier interview, SCO said the participating leaders would explore ways to foster collaboration within the organisation’s structure, especially in the context of the pandemic ‘s global political and socio-economic implications.
They will concentrate on ways of fostering the realistic engagement of SCO Member States in the areas of governance, defence, trade and economics, cultural and humanitarian relations, as well as political dialogue, especially in the interests of stability in the SCO space. They will also address strengthening the trade and economic cooperation and coordination of their countries at the major international sites,’ the statement reads.
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The key priorities of the SCO include the fostering of mutual trust and good neighbourly ties between Member States, the strengthening of regional peace , security and stability and the development of a mechanism for effective cooperation in the fields of politics , culture, commerce and economy, science and technology, education, energy , transport, tourism, protection of the environment and other fields.
In 2017, Pakistan joined SCO as a full member. Since then, Pakistan, the FO said, has been actively contributing to the promotion of the multi-sectoral agenda of the SCO through involvement in the various structures of the organisation.
Published in Dharti News, November 10th, 2020
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