ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday emphasized his government’s commitment to robust economic reforms and called for stronger international cooperation on climate resilience during talks on the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) summit in Riyadh, underscoring Pakistan’s bid to attract investment and address environmental challenges.

Sharif was speaking at a high-level roundtable discussion titled, “Is Humanity Heading In The Right Direction” on the FII sidelines, where he lauded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for organizing the summit, which he said symbolizes his leadership and vision to transform societies like he has done in Saudi Arabia.

He said his government is currently undertaking “most robust changes and deep-rooted reforms,” including the digitization of Pakistan’s tax collection authority and a crackdown on corruption with “full might,” which are a need of the hour to put Pakistan on track of economic recovery after a prolonged meltdown.

“While we are doing all this, we are in an agrarian economy. My friends, ladies and gentlemen sitting here, Pakistan, unfortunately, is included in that list of first 10 countries which are exposed to the vagaries of weather, climate change, and for no rhyme or reason, no fault of ours,” he said.

“Our emission is less than a fraction of 1 percent and yet, in 2022, we faced devastating cloudbursts, floods and storms, and we lost in the process. Our economic losses, $130 billion. Large swathes of our land were underwater. Crops were destroyed. Millions of houses were destroyed.”

While several countries pledged to fund climate-resilience initiatives in Pakistan after the 2022 floods, only a fraction of those pledges could be realized.

In May, Islamabad got a $1.4 billion climate resilience loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and became the first country in the Middle East and Central Asia region to access the lender’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) program.

Sharif lamented that they had to take loans to rebuild the areas which were devastated by 2022 floods, while deluges this year again submerged vast tracts of land, killed more than 1,000 people and displaced millions of others.

“It has to be mutual cooperation. If you think, if somebody thinks that countries like Pakistan who are devastated, loans would be enough, that is not acceptable. Loans over loans, your back will break and you will never be able to stand up,” he said.

“If humanity has to move forward, it has to move forward in unison, share its bounties and grievances together, move forward and share modern technologies with those countries which can use those technologies and grow their production, whether it is agriculture, industry, etc. and employment.”

The prime minister later held a meeting with the World Economic Forum (WEF) President and CEO Børge Brende in Riyadh. The meeting was held at the WEF leadership’s request in order to formally invite the prime minister to the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos in January next year, according to Sharif’s office.

The prime minister appreciated the ongoing robust engagement between Pakistan and the WEF and reaffirmed Pakistan’s readiness to deepen its ties with the forum’s global business and innovation network.

“While exchanging views on Pakistan’s economy, the Prime Minister highlighted the government’s deep rooted structural economic reforms directed toward stabilization, fiscal discipline, investment, and digital transformation,” Sharif’s office said, welcoming the WEF partnership on resilient food systems that are vital for Pakistan’s agrarian economy.

“WEF President Børge Brende thanked the prime minister for Pakistan’s active engagement with WEF and said that he looked forward to continued support from Pakistan in advancing a mutually beneficial partnership.”