{"id":127354,"date":"2026-06-10T17:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=127354"},"modified":"2026-06-10T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:41:11","slug":"centre-provinces-made-decisions-in-the-best-interest-of-pakistan-pm-says-in-nec-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/","title":{"rendered":"Centre, provinces &#8216;made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan&#8217;, PM says in NEC meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ISLAMABAD(National Times)- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said the Centre and the provinces had taken various decisions in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of Pakistan as the National Economic Council (NEC) met on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The NEC met to finalise federal and provincial development plans ahead of the presentation of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year (FY2026-27). It is the highest economic decision-making forum of the federation, led by the premier and comprising the four chief ministers and four federal ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Centre [\u2026] held consultations with the provinces on all matters with extreme seriousness, and we made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan,\u201d PM Shehbaz said in remarks aired on television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prime minister thanked all chief ministers for their \u201cconsultations and assistance on all matters\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PM Shehbaz noted that Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz could not attend the meeting as she was recovering after her&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2003538\">recent&nbsp;<\/a>medical procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cToday, despite having to face big challenges, our economy is stable at the macroeconomic level. But, injecting growth into this is an extremely important process,\u201d the premier observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAdvancing employment, production, exports and economic activity is our collective responsibility,\u201d he said, adding that all governments tried their best to stay on track on the IMF programme despite \u201csome difficult stages\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his address, he also spoke of a phone call with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, saying that during the conversation, Georgieva was \u201cextremely appreciative of Pakistan\u2019s sincere efforts\u201d towards the IMF programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He noted that ahead of the NEC, the centre had been consulting with the provinces on where more resources could be brought in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PM Shehbaz noted that the \u201cbiggest challenge\u201d the country faced was \u201cto strengthen our defence\u201d, particularly against terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe entire nation, especially KP and Balochistan, as well as the law enforcement agencies and armed forces, is making sacrifices in the fight against terrorism,\u201d the premier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He maintained that terrorism could only be eliminated if the country \u201cput up a collective struggle against it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PM Shehbaz further stressed the need for \u201cinjecting\u201d incentives aimed at export growth and manufacturing capabilities into the economy to accelerate GDP growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He noted that a common man would not concern himself with \u201cmacro-level stability\u201d but rather wanted better employment opportunities, development in agriculture and the industrial sector, and growth in exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his remarks, PM Shehbaz highlighted the recent \u201chuge challenge\u201d arising from the surge in global oil prices, which led to prices of petroleum products being increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was not possible that the Centre and provinces could have dealt with the difficult period without cooperating with each other,\u201d he noted, expressing his heartfelt gratitude to all four chief ministers for their assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBut before this provincial assistance, the Centre had already spent Rs128bn from its extremely limited resources,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Highlighting that no \u201crationing or long queues\u201d were seen after the Middle East&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1976390\">conflict<\/a>&nbsp;sparked, PM Shehbaz affirmed that the reason for this was the \u201cmutual unity\u201d between the provinces and the Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was the result of our sense of understanding and our teamwork that there were no lines at petrol stations and we made our best efforts to fulfil the expectations of the public,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Concluding his address, PM Shehbaz thanked Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif as well as President Asif Ali Zardari, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, KP CM Sohail Afridi, and Balochistan CM Sarfaraz Bugti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWithout provincial and federal integration, we would not have reached this point [..], and we must now move forward,\u201d the premier concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the meeting, the NEC was to review federal and provincial&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2004536\">development plans<\/a>&nbsp;worth Rs4.715 trillion for the next fiscal year amid conflicting fiscal needs of critical political and other institutional stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The government had also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2006413\/president-zardari-summons-na-senate-sessions-on-june-10\">summoned<\/a>&nbsp;sessions of the National Assembly (NA) and Senate for 5pm and 4pm today, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A source in the NA Secretariat told&nbsp;<em>Dawn<\/em>&nbsp;that both sessions have been called budget sessions for 2026\u201327. However, it is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2006338\">expected<\/a>&nbsp;that the budget will be presented in parliament on June 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2006604\/centre-provinces-made-decisions-in-the-best-interest-of-pakistan-pm-says-in-nec-meeting#nec-agenda\"><\/a>NEC agenda<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The NEC had a four-point&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2006024\">agenda<\/a>&nbsp;for the meeting. The first item pertained to a review of the Annual Plan 2025-26, approval of the Annual Plan 2026-27 and a presentation on key socio-economic indicators of the provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was to be followed by a review of Public Sector Investment (PSI) 2025-26, the proposed PSI 2026-27 and confirmation of changes made in the PSDP 2025-26 through addendums, corrigendums and adjustments on the directives of the prime minister, including a cut of around Rs175bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The meeting was also to include presentations on provincial annual development plans by the four chief secretaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The NEC was also expected to take up a progress report of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, and schemes approved by the CDWP and the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) during the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The meeting of the NEC, previously planned for June 8, was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/2006260\">postponed<\/a>&nbsp;for the third time at the last moment amid continuing negotiations over the freezing of provincial shares in the federal divisible pool under the National Finance Commission (NFC) award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD(National Times)- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said the Centre and the provinces had taken various decisions in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of Pakistan as the National Economic Council (NEC) met on Wednesday. The NEC met to finalise federal and provincial development plans ahead of the presentation of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest_news","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Centre, provinces &#039;made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan&#039;, PM says in NEC meeting - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Centre, provinces &#039;made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan&#039;, PM says in NEC meeting - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ISLAMABAD(National Times)- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said the Centre and the provinces had taken various decisions in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of Pakistan as the National Economic Council (NEC) met on Wednesday. The NEC met to finalise federal and provincial development plans ahead of the presentation of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-10T12:41:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-4-12.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"670\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/\",\"name\":\"Centre, provinces 'made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan', PM says in NEC meeting - Nation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-4-12.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-10T12:41:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-4-12.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-4-12.png\",\"width\":670,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Centre, provinces &#8216;made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan&#8217;, PM says in NEC meeting\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\",\"name\":\"Nation\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\",\"name\":\"humza Jahangir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"humza Jahangir\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/author\/humza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Centre, provinces 'made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan', PM says in NEC meeting - Nation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/127354\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Centre, provinces 'made decisions in the best interest of Pakistan', PM says in NEC meeting - Nation","og_description":"ISLAMABAD(National Times)- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said the Centre and the provinces had taken various decisions in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of Pakistan as the National Economic Council (NEC) met on Wednesday. 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