India borrowed Pakistan’s economic and reforms plans and implemented them successfully while “we squandered the opportunity largely because of political instability”, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said.

“During the 90s the then Indian Finance Minister Manmohan Singh borrowed economic reforms strategies from his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz and successfully implemented them in India,” said Iqbal, who also holds the portfolio of Interior Minister.

He was speaking at the inauguration of Pakistan National Centre for Cyber Security in Islamabad, the Express Tribune reported on Tuesday.

Iqbal claimed that Bangladesh also successfully used the same strategies but Pakistan could not put its own plans to use as the decade was lost to political instability, the report said.

“We will have to think why many countries which were behind us are now far ahead. China’s per capita income was far below Pakistan’s but is now much higher. Similarly, Bangladesh’s foreign reserves have reached $33 billion while we are at $18 billion. For how long, we will watch other countries overtake us.”

Iqbal said tanks and missiles alone could not save a country “if it’s not strong economically”.