KARACHI, Jan 6: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Friday urged the United States and the European Union to give Pakistan more market access in view of the country’s role in the fight against terrorism.

President Musharraf said it “will help boost our trade, bring in more foreign and local investment”.

He was talking to a group of students from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business at the Governor House here on Friday.

The president told the students that the government was focusing on improving economy, trade and commercial activities.

He said the country was targeting exports amounting to $17 billion during the current year. Pakistan, he said, had already attained a 125 per cent increase in exports.

“We are looking for enhancing trade with the West. We are looking for diversification of our goods and diversifying our markets,” President Musharraf remarked.

He said: “We are looking at the East also. We have good relations with China. We are trying to give a boost to our economic relations with China, with South East Asia and with Africa.”

“We want as much investment coming into Pakistan as possible,” the president said.

He said: “In 1999-2000, we modified our approach and opted to go into heavy industry, high-tech and engineering sectors.”

Highlighting the importance of competing in the knowledge-based world, he said: “We are looking at (improving) our education, especially higher education.”

Gen Musharraf said that various developed countries had been contacted for opening up high-tech and engineering universities in Pakistan.

He said that within the next three to five years, engineering universities would be opened up with the assistance of Sweden, Austria, Germany, France and South Korea.

He pointed out that Japan was also assisting Pakistan in developing technical centres to train skilled manpower.

President Musharraf said the National Assembly and the Senate had allowed him through a two-third majority to retain his army post till 2007 and hold two offices – that of the president and the chief of the army staff — simultaneously.

“I think the decision is very good,” the president remarked, adding that presently there was a need for unity of command between the political forces, the bureaucrats and the military.

“I provide that unity of command,” he said. Therefore, the present environment required him to maintain the unity of command till 2007 elections.

The president was optimistic about consolidating the democratic process and the sustained growth of the national economy.

He said Pakistan had adopted a six-point strategy to deal with extremism. He said that the government had banned all extremist organisations and it was also looking into the misuse of mosques by various clerics, who, he said, create hatred and militancy.

Highlighting the government’s efforts at restructuring curriculum and syllabi and said the government was concentrating on teaching of the values of Islam rather than focussing on promoting rituals.

He said there were about 14,000 Madressahs with over a million students, adding that the government was trying to streamline these institutions by asking them to teach students according to boards’ syllabus.

He said that the government had turned Pakistan into an investor-friendly country by ensuring security of capital.

He said that Pakistan offered a lot of profitability, which, according to him, was not possible in any Western country, and there were 700 foreign firms operating in the country.— APP