DUBAI: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday said the hydra-headed menace of terrorism was our common enemy and no one country could battle it out alone.

He termed the Friends of Democratic Pakistan “a collective determination against an evil mindset” and urged the international community to address root causes of terrorism such as poverty and unemployment.

The foreign minister was addressing the Friends of Democratic Pakistan’s Public-Private Partnership Conference in Dubai.

He said the three-year plan of reconstruction and rehabilitation in Malakand comprised close to 500 projects and would cost about $ 300 million.

The five year development plan, based on Post-crisis Needs Assessment, would cost around $1.2 billion, and the FoDP must expedite its process to complete these projects, the minister said.

Pakistan has suffered huge economic losses of over $35 billion since September 11 in terms of infrastructure, investment and exports, Qureshi said.

This amount, he said, is indeed negligible, as compared to the billions of dollars being spent in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

Qureshi said that Pakistan prefers foreign investments in building joint ventures, public-private partnerships, investment and trade under frameworks and mechanisms that can be sustained in the years to come. — DawnNews