March 11, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 7, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 10: The federal and provincial finance ministers on Monday decided to create an environment conducive to overall increase of economic growth in the country.

The decision came at a meeting held to discuss strategies for increasing interaction between the federal and provincial financial managers for economic and social development of the country. The prime minister’s adviser on finance, Shaukat Aziz, was in the chair.

Later, Mr Aziz told reporters that one of the objectives of the meeting was to find out ways and means to make provinces self-supporting through generation of economic activity.

The meeting decided to meet once a month in respective provincial capitals to maintain rapport and create understanding for an effective management of fiscal discipline and utilization of development funds.

The meeting was briefed on the debt strategy, mid-year review of economic performance, budgetary position and its utilization, ongoing development projects and foreign assistance for uplift projects.

The participants discussed issues confronting provinces, especially evolving a home-grown debt reduction strategy, encouragement of the construction sector, agriculture, and small- and medium-term enterprises.

They agreed that the Centre and provinces had to compliment each other in maintaining fiscal discipline and adopting an outcome-based approach while planning and implementing projects in the social sector.

The ministers agreed to discuss issues pertaining to the NFC after its reconstitution.

Mr Aziz said that provinces needed to develop debt and fiscal strategy and speed up utilization of funds for development projects.

The federal government would provide full support to provinces for capacity building, financial management and monetary stability and economic growth, he added.

The meeting was also attended among others by the finance minister of Azad and Jammu Kashmir.