Pakistan to share skills in social protection, agriculture with South: Khusro

ISLAMABAD: The Minister for Economic Affairs, Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar on Thursday said that Pakistan will share experience in fields of social protection and poverty alleviation, textile, dairy and milk products under the South- South Cooperation.

President Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group, Dr. Bandar Hajjar and Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar co-chaired online launch of the report on “Mapping Pakistan’s Resource Centers” said a press release issued by Ministry of Economic Affairs here.

The event was virtually attended by all field offices of IsDB in the member countries and other experts.

In his welcoming remarks, the minister appreciated the IsDB’s support in socio-economic development of Pakistan and thanked IsDB and Pakistani institutions for undertaking the mapping exercise.

He underlined the importance of this report by saying that this will help the developing member countries to benefit from Pakistan’s experience through knowledge sharing.

The minister said that producing the report on the “Mapping of Pakistan’ Resource Centers” is an important milestone to highlight the level of development in four key sectors of the economy i.e. Agriculture, Agro-based Industries, pharmaceuticals and Information and Communication Technologies.

Additionally, Pakistan has great experience to share in social protection and poverty alleviation, Textile and related industries and diary and milk products under the South- South Cooperation, he said.

This report focuses on four key sectors of the economy including Agriculture, Agro-based industry, Pharmaceutical Industry and Information Communication Technology.

The profiles of sixteen Pakistani institutions– referred as Resource Centres- that have excellence in the respective field and developed reliable technologies have been published which can be shared by other member countries.

The minister and President IsDB expressed their readiness to cooperate with each other and to involve the selected Resource Centers in Reverse Linkage projects for the betterment of Islamic Ummah.

Dr. Bandar Hajjar appreciated the great potential of knowledge and expertise available in Pakistan and cherished that other member countries will benefit from this publication.

He also informed that IsDB has an ongoing support to mitigate COVID-19 impacts and has further allocated 2.5 billion USD to help the member countries for vaccine procurement.