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PESHAWAR, Oct 4: NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and High Commissioner of Brunei Pehin Colonel (Rtd) Abdul Jalil Ahmad have agreed on promoting closer interaction between the people of two brotherly countries to improve trade and investment in Frontier.
The diplomat met the chief minister at Frontier House on Tuesday and discussed with him matters ranging from investment opportunities, minerals deposits, hydro and tourism to the strategic location of the frontier province.
The chief minister said that interaction between traders and investors of both the countries would enhance relations and develop a culture of people-to-people contact between the two countries.
He said that the NWFP offered tremendous investment potential in hydro electric undertakings, mineral deposits while it has beautiful valleys bearing attraction for tourists.
He said foreign investors had been showing great interest in exploitation of advantages in the frontier. There have been discoveries of natural gas in Karak and Kohat and there have been undiscovered avenues where the investors of Brunei could invest and get maximum return. He said that the environment in NWFP province was conducive for investment.
There was exemplary law and order situation. The Chinese, Italian and Hungarian were investing in the province which was the gateway to Central Asian states and with re-construction of Afghanistan, there is a great potential for trade and economic activities which needs to be exploited.
The chief minister said that the frontier had potential for power, water promotion and electricity production that required investment. Once small dams for agriculture purposes and power production were built they would become perennial source of revenue generation. There would be more jobs, more economic activity and more dividends, he added.
MEETING WITH NIPA’S DIRECTOR GENERAL: The NWFP chief minister has said that his government believes that education is responsibility of the state, therefore, his government has brought educational reforms in the province.
He was talking to Director General NIPA Maj. Gen (Rtd) Akbar Saeed Awan at the Frontier House Peshawar on Tuesday.
He said that right from day one his government had concentrated on quality education, de-centralised educational facilities down to the district level, established new institutions from Post-graduate to primary level in districts, offered free education up to Matric and provided books to primary-school children.
In the 2nd step, his government provided free textbooks to female students up to Matric and the next year the government would spend Rs One billion to provide free books to all students up to Matric throughout the province.
