KUWAIT: Eminent Pakistani figures, including a minister and leading businesspeople, addressed leading members of Kuwait's Pakistani community at a recent event in the Quid-I-Azzam Auditorium in the Pakistan Embassy in Kuwait.
The illustrious speakers at the event included Abdul Rauf Siddiqi, the Minister of Commerce and Trade for Pakistan's Sindh province, along with Nadim Abbas and Mirza Hafiz Baig, the co-directors of the Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI).
The ceremony began with a recitation from the Holy Quran by Hafiz Mohammad Shabir of the Amir Minhaj Welfare Society, after which the Charg� d'Affaires at the Pakistani Embassy Sajjad Ahmad Sahar gave a speech welcoming the guests and audience members.

Sahar then introduced the first speakers, Abbas and Baig, who explained in their addresses that the PRI was established with the cooperation of the State Bank of Pakistan, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Ministry of Finance, to provide remittance facilities for expatriate Pakistanis. The initiative has managed to achieve its objective of facilitating and supporting a faster, cheaper, more convenient and efficient flow of remittances, they explained.

They further revealed that the PRI and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on December 29, 2009 signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoU) which aims to facilitate a strategic long-term alliance between the two bodies for the purpose of catering to the needs of Pakistani expatriates, including their need to travel to and from Pakistan and to facilitate the flow of remittances sent home by them.

In his own address, Siddiqi said that Pakistan's expatriate population are major assets for the country, who could play a key role in establishing industries in Sindh province. Investors in such projects will not only be allocated land but helped with other facilities. The land will be allocated under a legal lease so that no future government can reclaim it, he emphasized.

Pakistan needs its expatriate population, Siddiqi went on, saying that if expatriate Pakistanis decided to support the country's economy there would be no need for foreign loans. "We can have our mutual differences, but for the country we are united," said the minister. "God has blessed us with every good thing and the whole world knows that Pakistanis are the hardest workers. We should rebuild Pakistani nationalism." During the event, Siddiqi also spoke about his best known work, 'Taareekh Khana Khaba,' in which he describes the history of the holy Kaaba in Makkah. - Kuwait Times