ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: Pakistan’s private sector will play a big role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan specially by taking part in the construction work and exporting all necessary goods and equipment to that war ravaged country.
“I have been assured by the European Union commissioner and finance ministers of many other countries in Tokyo that the private sector of Pakistan will have all the opportunities to take part in the reconstruction work in a big way”, said Minister for Finance Shaukat Aziz.
Speaking at a news conference here on Wednesday after his arrival from Japan, he, however, called upon the private sector to pursue bilateral contacts all across Afghanistan to benefit from the big reconstruction activity that had been planned by the rich countries and other international donor agencies.
He said during the meetings with the EU commissioner and his other counterparts, he was assured that they will prefer to buy goods from Pakistan so that its own economy could also be further improved.
Mr Aziz also informed reporters that he had discussed with the Japanese authorities the new official development assistance (ODA) from Japan. “We are initiating dialogue with Japan to open bilateral agreement to determine interest rate for debts that had been rescheduled by the Paris Club”, he added.
Japan had been extending roughly $500 million annually to Pakistan which was discontinued when Pakistan decided to go nuclear in 1998. Now generally it is expected that Japan would increase its annual level of assistance from $500m to $700m beside extending new market access for Pakistani goods. The Japanese government was also expected to lower interest rate on its $5 billion debt to Pakistan.
The finance minister also said that he had a very useful meeting with the chairman of the Afghan interim government Hamid Karzai and finance minister Hadiat Amin Arsla in Tokyo during which he discussed with them forging better political and economic ties between the two countries.
“Tokyo conference was a tremendous vote of confidence in the interim government of Hamid Karzai”, he said adding that $1.8bn will be offered to the Afghan government by the international community during the first year of reconstruction. He said that $4.5bn approved by the conference will help build necessary infrastructure and undertaking other health and educational activities in Afghanistan.
He said a lot of assistance will also go in capacity building. The chairman of the interim government, he said, assured the conference that there will be a transparent system and that accountability will be conducted against those who would misuse the funds.
The finance minister said that it was agreed in the conference that some kind of a trust will be created to channelize funds for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Giving the details of Pakistan’s support, he said that a total of $100m will be extended to Afghanistan in five years time. He said that $20m will be offered every year. Half of the amount will be in cash while the remaining money will be in the shape of commodity and technical assistance, he said.
