ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government is pursuing economic diplomacy for the first time through “proactive outreach and robust engagement” with other nations with the aim of bringing about socio-economic development, the foreign minister said on Friday.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi was speaking at an investment conference in Islamabad.

“It is for the first time that a government has put muscle on the idea [of economic diplomacy]; placing it at the highest pedestal of our foreign policy priorities and assiduously working out the details,” Qureshi said in his address at the conference.

Highlighting the achievements of his government in the first nine months since coming to power in July polls, he said Pakistan had played a vital role in bringing the Afghan Taliban to the table for talks with the US government to seek an end to a 17-year-long war. He also said the government had brought the country back from the brink of war with India and further strengthened relations with allies.

“With China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Qatar, Malaysia and Iran, our relations have assumed a stronger economic dimension,” Qureshi said.

He said Pakistan had secured balance of payments support of $13.4 billion from friendly countries, which included direct cash assistance, grants, trade concessions and an oil on deferred payments facility.

“Saudi Arabia’s Aramco has committed $20 billion to set up an oil refinery in Gwadar; and the UAE and Qatar are eyeing investments of a comparable magnitude,” he said, adding that a recently signed Free Trade Agreement with China would help Pakistan increase its exports by $6 billion.

The foreign minister also listed the government’s ten-point economic diplomacy agenda which includes enhancing Pakistan’s exports, sending people abroad for jobs to increase remittances, prioritizing technology and innovation, promoting tourism and countering terror financing.

“A key task of Pakistani diplomacy is to work to create a peaceful external environment, so that long term developmental goals can be advanced in earnest,” Qureshi said.