DOHA: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday described the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) agreement between Qatar and his country as historic saying it will bring prosperity to Pakistan.

With this landmark deal signed between Qatar Petroleum and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources the trade volume between both countries will increase remarkably Sharif told members of the Pakistani community at the Four Seasons hotel.

“This is my second visit to Qatar as Prime Minister. Our meetings with the Qatari leadership were fruitful. We have signed several memorandums of understandings. The biggest deal inked yesterday was for import of LNG from Qatar” he added.

With the signing of the deal the volume of trade between both countries is expected to increase from $300m to $1bn. “This energy deal is very important for Pakistan. The LNG will be supplied to Pakistan’s industries and power plants. The electricity bill is also expected to come down because of LNG. I am very confident that this deal will bring prosperity to Pakistan” he added.

Sharif urged Pakistani workers in Qatar to become ideal employees through their dedicated service to their organisations. “I am very happy to meet our countrymen. I would like to say to Pakistani expatriates especially those working as doctors and engineers to leave your professional footprint in Qatar to make our country proud through their dedicated services” he said.

He urged Qataris to make investments in Pakistan and promised good returns and called on Pakistani expatriates in Qatar to invest in their country. Regarding foreign investments in Pakistan the Prime Minister said the foreign reserve had reached a high point.

Sharif also spoke about security situation in Pakistan and said internal security has improved. The security operation (Zarb-e-Azam) against terrorist elements will continue until the goal is achieved. Security situation in Karachi has also improved.

On infrastructure development projects in his country he said work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is in full swing . Not only Pakistan and China but also the entire region will benefit he added.

“We have limited resources so we have to set priorities for our development projects. We are very thankful to China which has made huge investments in Pakistan.

“In the past one and half decades no remarkable investments were made to develop the power sector in Pakistan. Therefore we are suffering due to shortage of power and outages.

“In my past tenure I built motorway from Peshawar to Islamabad. Afterwards no government bothered to build a similar project. Once again we have started to build another motorway from Karachi to Lahore” he said.

Later Sharif left concluding his two-day official visit to Qatar.

He and his delegation were seen off at Hamad International Airport by Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada Qatari Ambassador to Pakistan Saqr bin Mubarak Al Mansour and Pakistani Ambassador to QatarShahzad Ahmed.

The Peninsula