Pakistan’s Development Minister Visits Pardee School
Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning, Development and Reform for the government of Pakistan, visited the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University on March 1, 2016. He participated in a conversation on “Pakistan’s Economic Future” with faculty, students and invited guests. Guests included faculty and experts from Boston University and from other area universities, entrepreneurs, business leaders and students.
Remarks from Minister Ahsan Iqbal and the dinner conversation that followed focused on Pakistan’s economic challenges and prospects. Moderated by Pardee School Dean Adil Najam, this included frank and informed remarks from the participants, who included many who specialize on development policy and on Pakistan.
Minister Ahsan Iqbal is a four-term elected member of Pakistan’s national parliament and a seasoned politician who is also the Deputy Secretary General of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. A graduate of the Univeristy of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan and then of the Wharton School of Business at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania, he has also served as the country’s Minister of Education in the past and is now the lead cabinet official focusing of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative.
Iqbal said that despite Pakistan’s security challenges, the country is “ready for an economic takeoff.” According to him, the key drivers of the country’s bright future prospects are (a) the emergence of a knowledge economy and (b) the China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) initiative. He said that the world has begun looking at Pakistan with “a different, and more positive, lens” because Pakistan has shifted its focus from “only the geo-political to also the geo-economic.”
He pointed out that Pakistan is in the midst of expanding its higher education infrastructure, including investing in building world-class universities and plans to send 10,000 PhD students to leading international universities. He also drew the audience’s attention to the $42 billion investment package that China has announced as part of the CPEC initiative.
The event was one in a series of events at the Pardee School that bring senior international policy makers to the Boston University for important policy conversations with faculty and students.