March 2, 2003	Sunday	Zul Hijjah 28, 1423

ISLAMABAD, March 1: The Asian Development Bank has offered Pakistan a record level of $1.141 billion financial assistance in the calendar year 2002. The bank had approved 13 loans for seven projects for which $1.141 billion were offered to Pakistan.

According to the local ADB office, the bank also approved 17 technical assistance grants for Pakistan in 2002, totalling $7.67 million. Of these, 8 grants were for advisory technical assistance in the areas of support for implementation of decentralization, enhancement of public sector resource management capacity and institutional reforms in Punjab, strengthening debt management capacity of the economic affairs division (EAD), strengthening portfolio performance and monitoring, gender reform and enhancing access to comprehensive insurance after 9/11.

The remaining nine grants were for project preparatory technical assistance for agribusiness development, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) rural development, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector development, Balochistan road sector development, industrial efficiency and environment management, Punjab rural water supply and sanitation, decentralized social services, technical education and early childhood development.