PUTRAJAYA: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan looks to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as an inspiration to transform his own country, stating that this is one of the reasons he and his delegation had come to Malaysia.
This is Imran’s first official visit to Malaysia since he became Prime Minister in July, and he said that he was keen on learning how to transform Pakistan’s economy much like how Mahathir had developed the Malaysian economy.
“I look to you as a statesman and someone who has transformed the country,” he said in joint press conference with Mahathir at the Prime Minister’s Office here.
“We have followed Malaysia’s progress since you came into office. We want to learn from your experience, how you transformed the economy and developed it, how you raised the per capita income and gross domestic product.
“We wanted to come here at the first opportunity to learn from your past experience.”
Pakistan cricket legend Imran, who had become his country’s 22nd prime minister, said that Malaysia and Pakistan had a lot of similarities as both these men were given their mandate by the public to rid their governments of corruption.
“We also faced unprecedented debts, we want to learn how to face those issues from you,” he said.
Imran also invited Mahathir to be the chief guest on Pakistan Day next year (March 23).
“We hope to further strengthen our contact and relations with Malaysia,” he added.
Earlier in the press conference, Mahathir said this was the first time he received a leader on an official visit to Malaysia.
He also admires that Pakistan has similar problems to Malaysia.
“We find that we have problems that are similar. At the meeting with the Pakistan prime minister, we discussed these issues as well as ways and means of tackling them.
“We will continue to have dialogues in order to learn from each other’s experiences and ways of tackling the problems.”
Imran, who arrived in Malaysia last night for a two-day official visit, was earlier accorded an official welcome at Perdana Square. His trip to Malaysia follows an official visit to China early last month.
