QUETTA, Dec 13: President General Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that Pakistan had been effectively combating terrorism and addressing the menace in its strategic perspective.

Addressing the Command and Staff College, President Musharraf also called for addressing the root causes of terrorism and called upon the international community to help resolve political disputes affecting Muslims.

At the same time, he said, the Muslim world should renounce extremism and focus on socio-economic well being and human resource development of its people.

“Pakistan is confronting terrorism frontally and we are hitting terrorists hard in the mountains, plains and wherever else we find them,” he said.

Pakistan, he said, is a vastly moderate society but has to deal with a minority of extremists existing on its fringes.

With regard to Islamic renaissance, President Musharraf said that qualified Islamic scholars in universities, and seminaries and effective use of the electronic media would help project real values and correct the image of the great religion of Islam, which stands for peace, tolerance, moderation and harmony.

On the subject of democracy, the president said it exists in its true essence at the grassroot level. He said democracy has to be tailored in accordance with requirements, peculiar to each country.

Commenting on the state of the national economy, the president said that Pakistan had made great strides in the last six years. He said his government had decided to address two key issues - fiscal deficit and external balance of payments.

“Both aspects have been taken care of and now Pakistan’s economy is booming,” he said.

Describing a series of economic achievements, President Musharraf said foreign exchange reserves were increasing, the GDP is 8.4 per cent and debts had fallen.

He said the country’s debt ratio was 59 per cent, whereas the European Union countries had kept it to 60 per cent.

“Our exports have increased substantially to $17 billion, which is up by over 100 per cent from six years ago; revenues have also registered an increase as the economy has been documented, the stock exchange is performing well, purchasing power of the people has been strengthened as a positive outcome of these policies,” he said.

Referring to key initiatives in the agriculture sector, the president said that wastage of water had been controlled through brick-lining of water courses.

President Musharraf promised to provide electricity and safe drinking water to all by the year 2007. He said 61 per cent of diseases were water-borne and the government had prioritized the supply of safe drinking water as part of its efforts to provide better health facilities.

He said villages and towns without gas would be supplied the facility through mobile tanks. “If this experiment proves successful, it will be implemented and no village or town would be left without supply of gas facility.”

The president said the country was coping well with the Oct 8 earthquake catastrophe and would carry out the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation in a transparent manner. He said 400,000 people were being given Rs75,000 each for the construction of houses.

Corps Commander Lt-Gen Hamid Rab Nawaz, Inspector General Training and Evaluation, Lt-Gen Masood Aslam and Commandant of the College, Maj-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha were present on the occasion.—APP