Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday that his government had put Pakistan on the road to progress by ensuring transparency and setting clear long term targets.
Addressing a ceremony to mark the first 100 days of his government, Khan, who took oath as prime minister on August 18, said that investors from several countries had shown interest in making investments in Pakistan.
"We have the resources and manpower and important location so the investors want to come here. We just need to create an environment for making it easy to do business," he said.
Highlighting the success of his first 100 days in power, he said Pakistan had signed agreements with 26 countries to bring back money stashed abroad. He said an agreement is also being signed with Switzerland.
"USD 11 billion is stashed abroad. This is the information we got from 26 countries. It does not include money kept in Switzerland," he said.
Pakistanis bought properties worth USD 9 billion just in Dubai in the last four years. It forced Pakistan to go to the IMF 16 times in the last two decades, he said.
He said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has traced fake bank accounts with money worth Rs 375 billion and those accounts were used to launder the money abroad.
He said the debt burden was an obstacle and Rs six billion is being paid as interest on loans every day. He claimed lands worth Rs 350 billion had been recovered from the land mafia in the first 100 days of his government.
He said the government was working on poverty alleviation in the country, including special programmes to address poverty in rural areas.
Khan promised to build five million houses for the poor and middle class people, and to introduce major initiatives to help the people and increase taxes.
He said that foreign remittances will increase up to USD 100-122 billion if the right environment is created and the government will provide that environment.
He said Pakistan wanted peace to increase trade and investment.
He said his government wanted normalisation of ties with India as it would help to increase trade which in return would improve the socio-economic situation.
He also gave credit to his wife Bushra Bibi, who he said always reminded him that he was the prime minister of the country and should do something. He claimed he took just one day off in the first 100 days.
Addressing the ceremony, Finance Minister Asad Umar said there was a deficit of Rs 2.3 lakh crore in the budget when Khan took power and the average deficit was USD two billion per month in three months prior to this government but dedicated efforts were made to reduce it to slightly over USD one billion per month.
Umar said different steps helped improve the situation of balance of payments. The finance minister said any agreement with the IMF will be made keeping in view the interest of the people of Pakistan.
Advisor to the Prime Minister on Establishment Arbab Shahzad said 18 out of 34 projects of the government were completed while work continues on the rest of the projects.
But the opposition rejected the claims and said Khan had nothing to tangible to show in his first 100 days.
"Imran used to say that he has readymade solutions for everything but he has nothing to offer other than hollow promises," said Ahsan Iqbal of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
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