Sindh blessed with immense potential: Motiwala

06 Dec, 2012

 

He highlighted the huge resource base of Oil, Gas, Coal and also more than 5 million hectors of cultivable fertile land.

 

This he said while holding a meeting with delegation of Asian Development Bank headed by Principal Public Management Specialist of Asian Development Bank, Yesim Elhan.

 

On the occasion Yesim Elhan, has said that Asian Development Board under Sindh Growth and Rural Revitalization Programme (SGARRP) aims to promote broad base growth and rural development in province of Sindh, ADB.

 

She informed that SGARRP aims to assist Government of Sindh to promote broad base growth in Sindh particularly targeting the rural economies while discussing the main objective of the Sindh Growth and Rural Revitalization Programme (SGARRP) with team of SBI headed by Chairman Muhammad Zubair Motiwala.

 

She said that the programme purposeto emphasizes the attain inclusive growth through greater involvement from Private sector investment as well as Public sector support for growth and development of rural areas of Sindh.

 

Earlier, Muhammad Zubair Motiwala instilled that SBI has been very active in highlighting the key areas of potential for local as well as foreign investment.

 

He explained that Sindh is predominantly an agrarian society and more than 70 per cent of population is stilled linked directly or indirectly with the agricultural produce, however, we have failed to properly exploit this potential at its maximum capacity.

 

He said that Pakistan has huge market both local as well as international level for value added agriculture produce, halal meat, fisheries, shrimp and aquaculture, fruit and vegetable processing and pulping and Cold Storage.

 

In the end he proposed ADB to intervene in these areas for capacity building at the grass root level and also assist in medium level value addition intervention.

 

Ready projects in Energy, Coal, Infrastructure, Road networks, Processing and pulping units, Shrimp and Aquaculture were also shared with ADP team.      Sindh Enterprise Development Fund (SEDF) and Entrepreneurship Development Program and two vital initiatives and signature project being undertaken by SBI.

 

In SEDF Small and Medium Enterprises are given subsidy on loan by Banks to their projects, where KIBOR part of the loan is paid by Government of Sindh, which has helped stimulate micro economy.

 

Sindh Government is also enthusiastically pursuing Khairpur Special Economic Zone for supporting the local industries especially dates processing, storage and packaging, which is the main and vital crop of Khairpur.

 

Technical Training on modern lines, research areas, financial frame works are the areas where ADB assistance is a must. Chairman SBI also emphasized on the indigenous energy source of Coal and Wind, where lies the ultimate solution to the country's energy crisis.

 

He reiterated that for every development provision of sustainable Energy is must and that can only be achieved when institutions like ADB, EU and other key political and financial institutions help Pakistan to develop.

 

The ADB team highly appreciated the efforts being taken by Government of Sindh for improvement in development process and assured ADB's further assistance and continued support to the cause of Sindh.

 

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012

Read Comments