Asian Development Bank (ADB) Country Director Werner E Leipach told Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday that co-operation between the ADB and Pakistan had been much more extensive as compared to the past years and the present government was keen to start work on key development projects.
Werner E Leipach met the finance minister on Sunday. He said the year 2014 saw the record disbursement of $900 million for different development projects including budgetary support whereas it was around $300 million in the past years.
The minister while appreciating the ADB’s contribution, impressed upon Werner to enhance the budgetary support. Warner also discussed the strategy of ADB for Pakistan in the next year which would be approved in the annual meeting to be held in May in Baku.
Warner said as per our commitment for facilitating infrastructure development and energy-related projects, the bank will be supporting projects like M4, E35 and regional development projects like CAREC and TAPI.
Our endeavour shall be to leverage more finances from DFID in the form of grants so that the loans extended for these projects should be replaced and recycled for other projects, the director said.
The finance minister told him that for the purpose of arranging finances for infrastructure development projects, they had already created an SPV. The IPDF shall soon actively start its work.
The minister further said that with 15 per cent growth in the workers’ remittances, Pakistan will be better able to manage the balance of payment and divert more finances to development of the country.
