LAHORE, June 17: Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi says his government has performed better than its predecessors.

Talking to reporters at his chamber after presenting the budget for 2004-05 in the Punjab Assembly on Thursday, he thanked the opposition for not boycotting the budget speech of the provincial finance minister.

He said the incumbent administration had increased the local resources by Rs9 billion through better financial management and tax collection. A big step in this respect was the debt-retirement strategy through which cheap loans were obtained to retire costly loans of the federal government. The mark-up on these federal loans was up to 19 per cent in some cases, he said.

In the absence of natural resources like oil and gas the only sector the government could develop for progress was human resources, he said. To develop this sector the first step was promotion of education, he added. The education reforms gave wonderful results as a seven per cent increase was registered in school enrolment, he claimed.

The second major emphasis would be creating employment opportunities mainly in the private sector by developing infrastructure, creating an investment-friendly atmosphere and removing all bottlenecks in the industrialization process.

He said the government would also introduce a Laser land-levelling project to ensure provision of irrigation water in the whole province. The chief minister refused to comment on reports of changes in the provincial cabinet.