Innovation Key To Sustainable Development: Ahsan Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Sep, 2025) Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said innovation was essential for achieving sustainable development, describing knowledge and research as the driving forces behind transformation in any society.

Addressing the inaugural session of the 30th International Summit titled “Redefining Digital Manufacturing: Concept-to-Product,” he said Pakistan has the potential to become a global leader in technology, citing the country's successful development of nuclear capabilities and the JF-17 fighter jet despite limited resources.

“A country that could develop nuclear weapons and fighter aircraft in the face of adversity can also lead in industrial production and innovation,” he said.

Ahsan Iqbal stressed that politics was not a social media game, lamenting that political discourse in Pakistan has been reduced to viral trends and sensationalism. “Unfortunately, we turned politics into a game of social media. But social media cannot decide the fate of a nation—it is only a tool for entertainment,” he added.

Commenting on Pakistan’s development journey, he recalled the launch of Vision 2010 in 1998 by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, which he said had anticipated many of the current challenges. However, he regretted that a political shift two years later disrupted the momentum.

In 2013, he said the PML-N government introduced Vision 2025, formulated through nationwide consultations with over 1,000 experts aimed at positioning Pakistan among the top 20 global economies by 2025.

He highlighted that by 2017, Pakistan’s global brand was the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

However, he said, a subsequent political experiment derailed progress. “A nuclear-armed country's steering wheel was handed to someone who lacked the experience to even run a union council.

When you give the keys of a complex vehicle to an untrained driver, you end up with a crash.”

The minister said on April 1, 2022, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, the Ministry of Finance refused to release the final quarter of the development budget, saying it had “not a single rupee. That day, Pakistan internally defaulted,” he said.

This year, Ahsan Iqbal said, the government would establish National Center for Nanotechnology, National Center for Quantum Computing and National Center for Neo-Manufacturing to prepare Pakistan’s industries for the next industrial revolution.

Besides, he said, the government was establishing a Quantum Valley in Islamabad, envisioned as ‘Pakistan’s Future Silicon Valley, which would serve as a collaborative hub for entrepreneurs, academia, and venture capitalists to foster innovation and technological advancement.

“Innovation through R&D is essential if we are to keep progressing,” he said, adding that industry-academia linkages must be strengthened to enhance the competitiveness of Pakistan’s industrial sector.

He said ‘URAAN Pakistan’ initiative was aimed transforming Pakistan into a $1 trillion economy by 2035, with science, technology and digital capacity-building forming the core pillars of this vision.

The minister recalled that in 2017, the government had already established national centers in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, big data, cloud computing, automation and robotics, satellite technology, GIS and applied mathematics.

He stressed the urgent need to regain momentum and focus on product innovation, advanced manufacturing, and Research & Development to ensure long-term progress.

“Pakistan’s future is bright. If we stay the course, God willing, we will become a global leader in technology,” he expressed confidence.