Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that Pakistan needs lasting peace and stability and that he wants peace with all their neighbors, particularly with Afghanistan and India. 

Addressing a question and answer session at the three-day Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh, Khan said: "Pakistan needs a lasting peace and stability to provide an enabling environment to the local and foreign investors in different projects in the country."

He said “we also want peace with all our neighbors particularly India and Afghanistan for regional peace and stability.

"Peace with India would help the two countries to divert their resources towards human development instead of indulging in arms race," Khan said.

He also said peace in Afghanistan would help Pakistan to have an easy access to the Central Asian States for bilateral economic and trade activities.

In addition he said he is hopeful that talks between Taliban and the US in Qatar will lead to peace in Afghanistan

As a serious debt crisis looms for Khan, he said during the session that Pakistan’s "government is approaching the IMF and the friendly countries to seek loans to plug this financial gap."

He said: "Government is also endeavoring to reform our institutions to check the menace of corruption in mega development projects and white collar crimes."

"Government is also going to provide enabling environment for doing business in Pakistan to attract the foreign investors particularly the overseas Pakistanis to invest in various projects in the country." 

The Prime Minister said the government will provide incentives to overseas Pakistanis to send their remittances through banking channels to enhance our foreign exchange reserves and check money laundering.

He said: “We have applied for IMF bailout package to get through tough period of next two to six months.”

Khan said before leaving for Riyadh that he could not skip the conference because “we’re desperate” for possible Saudi loans to shore up Pakistan’s economy.

It is Khan’s second visit to Saudi Arabia in just over a month, but he has not succeeded in securing significant financial assistance to stave off a looming balance of payments crisis, Reuters reported earlier Tuesday.

Khan meanwhile told the Middle East Eye in an interview published on Monday that he could not pass up the invitation to meet Saudi leaders again.

“The reason I feel I have to avail myself of this opportunity is because in a country of 210 million people right now we have the worst debt crisis in our history,” he was quoted as saying.

“Unless we get loans from friendly countries or the IMF (International Monetary Fund), we actually won’t have in another two or three months enough foreign exchange to service our debts or to pay for our imports. So we’re desperate at the moment.”

Islamabad has already asked the IMF to open negotiations for the country’s second potential bailout in five years.

Khan, who took office in July, still has been seeking alternatives to the tough conditions the IMF is likely to impose for loans, limiting his vision of an Islamic welfare state.