ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal here on Thursday met two delegations of USAID and Asian Development Bank.
Minister during the meeting with USAID appreciated the step taken by Congress to approve feasibility study of Diamer Basha Dam. He added that Pakistan is water scarce country with a few water storage facilities.
Minister said that being a semiarid country this project is vital for food security of the country also. This is a big breakthrough not only in energy sector but also for our agriculture.
Delegation of USAID was led by Gregory Gottlieb mission director USAID and other delegation was led by Klaus Gerheausser, director general (Central Asia Region) Asian Development Bank.
Gottlieb appreciated the vision which deputy chairman had foreseen for planning commission in general to revamp it and particularly for the country in the form of vision 2025 and five year plan.
He told the representative that we have two priority areas right now which are Vision 2025 and Five Year plan 2013-18. He further told that he has seven guiding principles to achieve a milestone of developed Pakistan.
First of all, energy is our first priority, second one is shift of patterns of growth of economy from loans and aids to export and resource mobilization.
In this regard, tax reforms and promoting environment of investment would be a key element of economic policy.
Gottlieb appreciated the ideas of the Minister and assured his full support for the development of Pakistan. He assured his interest in providing financial and technical support for food security of Pakistan and further proposed some ideas for improvement of livestock and agriculture sector of the country.
He also pledged to continue cooperation in building water reservoirs and in energy sector.
In the other meeting held with the delegation of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Federal Minister told that Pakistan has greatly benefitted from studies conducted by the help of ADB in 2010.
He told the director general (Central Asian Region) ADB that they were transforming Planning Commission into a strategic think-tank which would serve an early warning system for the future needs of the growing population.
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