While presiding over a meeting, the Prime Minister said Pakistani missions abroad should proactively work for availing opportunities for arranging events, exhibitions cultural functions with a view to projecting the image of the country.
He said the success stories in different fields need to be projected through international media.
Pakistan, he said, has a rich heritage and custodian of oldest civilisation. "We have the highest mountain peaks, longest glaciers outside the polar region and heritage of Indus valley and Buddhist civilisations." This provides us great potential for attracting tourists from abroad, there was a need to project this heritage and civilisation proactively to promote tourism.
Shaukat Aziz said the Board of Investment (BoI) should hold exhibitions within the country and abroad to promote business. The Ministry of Culture should send cultural troupe to project Pakistani culture, music and heritage. More and more sports events in Pakistan could also help in projecting the soft image of Pakistan.
He said the Ministry of Information should intensely interact with the international media and facilitate their visits to Pakistan to make documentaries and reports on Pakistani culture, society, development activities and heritage.
He said there was a need to adopt co-ordinated approach and all ministries and departments should compliment each other's efforts.
He directed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to gear up their efforts to set up media city in Islamabad to facilitate the local and foreign TV channels to uplink their programmes from Pakistan.
The media city should be an island of excellence and provide state of art facilities.
The meeting was attended by the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Minister for Religious Affairs, Ejazul Haq, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Anisa Zeb Tahir Kheli and Secretaries of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Religious Affairs.