ISLAMABAD, Dec 10: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Tuesday that Pakistan was looking forward to enhancing its cooperation with its European partners in important areas, including trade, investment, energy, infrastructure development, education and human resource development.

“European countries, as our largest trade and investment partners, enjoy a unique position in our priorities,” the prime minister said while addressing ambassadors of European countries at a luncheon hosted in their honour at the PM House.

Mr Sharif said his government was “very satisfied and deeply encouraged” to see the progress being made about grant of GSP+ status to Pakistan, which is going to be voted on by the European Parliament soon.

“I know this for a fact that our high hopes about Pakistan winning this status are very strongly founded on supportive and cooperative role of the resident missions,” he said.

The prime minister expressed his deep gratitude to the ambassadors for their support and assistance in this regard. He expressed confidence that given Pakistan’s improving ties with the European countries, the ambassadors’ continued support would enable Islamabad to get the coveted status, thereby stimulating further its economic growth, curbing extremism and promoting social stability.

“Pakistan is a country that’s full of potential, but which has yet to be fully exploited. We are looking to working closely with you, both in exploring, exploiting and developing this potential and realising the opportunities,” he remarked.

Talking about US drone attacks in Pakistan, the prime minister said the strikes proved to be counter-productive and added that Pakistan was continuously apprising the international community about the adverse impact of these attacks.

He said the world must find such ways of curbing terrorism which were not counter-productive.—PPI