KARACHI, Feb 1: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday said the model status assumed by Karachi during the last one year with reference to international challenges of urbanisation and the start of fast-track development process had not only been liked world over but also there was emphasis today on its adoption as a model in developing cities.

“The participation in the World Economic Forum has given us a realisation that the policy adopted by the present government for the development of Karachi, investment and other related matters is in the right direction and our goal is nearer now,” said the city nazim.

Addressing a press conference at the Civic Center here on Thursday, Mustafa Kamal said the delegates at the WEF greatly appreciated our private-public partnership policy and described it advantageous to development of cities and challenges of urbanisation.

He pointed out that the WEF was a major world forum where heads of various countries, economists, experts, delegates of big cities of world countries and heads of multi-national companies were present and participated in talks, seminars and workshops on urbanisation challenges and took stock of as to which were the cities where governments were working to meet the challenges of urbanisation.

“I congratulate the people of Pakistan and specially of Karachi and it is a good omen for his party that he represented his country and city on this forum and had the opportunity of marketing Karachi nullifying the negative impression about Pakistan and specially this city at the international level.”

At that forum, he said, he had meetings with decision-makers who framed policies and ponder over from this point of view for development and to face challenges in that context and had the opportunity of removing the negative impression about Pakistan and Karachi.

Mustafa Kamal pointed out that when the present city government embarked upon its mission, he had stated that Karachi could not be compared with any other city of Pakistan because it was an international city and we should work to bring it at international level and market it as a regional hub.

“We are now developing Karachi as a major trade and economic centre on the world map and we have taken up this city as a regional city”.

The city nazim said that the development projects had been initiated to develop Karachi as a regional hub and they had cast a positive impact.—APP