Pakistan Economy in Upswing, says Musharraf
By Khawaja Ahsan Paul 'Pakistan Times' Punjab Bureau Chief

KABIRWALA: President General Pervez Musharraf has said that the country’s economy is doing well and the benefits of the economic turnaround are being passed on to the common man.

He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of Asia’s largest state-of-the-art milk processing plant here on Friday.

Nestle Pakistan, a subsidiary of Nestle S.A. Switzerland, has made an investment of US $ 70 million for this project.

The ceremony was attended among others by Punjab Governor, Lt. Gen (Rtd) Khalid Maqbool, Chief Minister Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikandar Hayat Bosan, Industries Minister, Jahangir Khan Tareen, provincial ministers and district Nazim, Khanewal, Sardar Ahmad Yar Harraj.

President Musharraf said that the dairy development was a guarantee to the uplift and prosperity of the rural population in the country.

He said that the government had recently introduced a new livestock and dairy development policy with an objective to exploit the real potential of this vital sector of the national economy and help sustain a high economic growth rate.

President said that Pakistan Dairy Development Company and Livestock and Dairy Development Board had been set up to expedite the process of development in the dairy sector.

He said that artificial insemination centres had been set up across the country to help improve the breed of the milch animals.

He said that embryo transfer technology centre had also been established to achieve this goal.

President Musharraf urged the rural community to adopt new techniques of dairy management to raise for their own economic benefits and the national development.

President Pervez Musharraf said the government was introducing micro credit schemes to assist the low-income groups in rural areas for livestock farming and dairy business.

He urged the farmers to utilise the facility of chillers for the storage of milk so that they could sell their produce to the milk plants at price higher than the one in the local market.

General Musharraf said the poverty will be eliminated by the masses themselves. However, the government would facilitate them through all the possible means.

Talking about government’s efforts to improve water availability in the country, he said that all dams including Kalabagh Dam would be constructed to enhance country’s water storage capacity for irrigation use.

He said the Mangla dam upraising project will increase the storage capacity by three million acre feet.

The President said the Nestle milk processing plant at Kabirwala (district Khanewal) is the largest milk plant in Asia with world’s largest milk collection centre.●