Moalims

LAHORE: British Minister of State for International Development Desmond Angus Swayne called on Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif here on Friday.
Matters regarding promotion of cooperation in education, health, skill development and other sectors were discussed in the meeting.
The chief minister said Britain was an important trade partner of Pakistan and various programmes in education, health and skill development sectors were running successfully in Punjab with the cooperation of Department for International Development (DFID) of UK.
He said the Punjab government wanted to further promote cooperation with the DFID and technical assistance especially in skill development will be welcomed.
The Punjab government was taking revolutionary steps for empowerment of youth besides enrollment, he added.
He said the programme for the improvement of public health facilities with the cooperation of DFID was yielding positive results.
He said due to cooperation between Punjab Skill Development Company and DFID, thousands of youth have been imparted skills in the province during the last few years, however, there was need for speedy progress in this regard.
He said the DFID should consider provision of technical assistance for producing quality skilled manpower and teachers training.
He assured that the Punjab government will provide all out cooperation for this purpose.
The chief minister said a target had been fixed to make two million youth skillful in Punjab during the next three years and special attention was being paid to the quality training of the youth.
Referring to measures taken for women empowerment, the chief minister said the Punjab government had taken effective steps for protection of rights of women and necessary legislation had been undertaken for this purpose.
He said special centers were being set up for redressing grievances of the women subjected to violence and all-out facilities regarding provision of justice will be provided to them at these centers under one-roof.
Highlighting the measures taken for elimination of terrorism and extremism, Shahbaz Sharif said that the whole nation was united to root out the menace of terrorism and extremism and the Punjab government had amended laws for enhancing punishment for terrorist activities.
British Minister of State for International Development Desmond Angus Swayne said Pakistan is the most important development partner of Britain.
He said that splendid measures had been taken in Punjab for the development of education, health and skill development sectors and Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif was implementing best strategy regarding improvement of these sectors.

News Reference