ISLAMABAD, April 22: Singaporean Minister for Health and Transport Dr Balaji Sadasivas has asked Islamabad to provide to his country's ships appropriate sizes of berths in Pakistani ports to increase the volume of trade between the two countries.

Talking to Communications Minister Babar Khan Ghauri here on Thursday, Dr Balaji also showed keen interest in availing the best facilities of berths in the Gwadar Port for heavy tradeships. Mr Ghauri assured the visiting minister that his ministry would undertake every effort to facilitate Singapore in utilizing the berths of Pakistani ports for trade.

Dr Balaji told the minister that the purpose of his visit was to explore avenues of better trade facilities between the two countries. He expressed the desire that direct flights from Singapore to Karachi might be restarted at the earliest in order to promote visits by the business community and for frequent exchange of official visits.

Additional secretary, communications, K.B. Rind, apprised the delegation of the on-going projects in roads and seaports sectors. The Gwadar Port will be ready for operation by December 2004.

This port has three berths of 900-meter length and depth of 11.5-14 km, with sufficient width to unload cargo from ships anchored on these, while seven and 10 berths would be constructed in this port in 2nd and 3rd phases, respectively.

Meanwhile, Dr Balaji also met minister-in-charge for science and technology and chairman of higher education, Prof Dr Attaur Rehman. The minister-in-charge told Dr Balaji that Rs170 billion had been earmarked for research activities and the amount would be increased to Rs200 billion a year.

He also stressed that universities should serve as a vehicle of economic growth in this modern bio-technological era. Keeping in view this principle, 52 universities of his country have been linked with fibre optic, he added. Our Staff Reporter from Lahore adds: Pakistan and Singapore will initiate formal negotiations on free trade agreement (FTA) by the end of this year.

This was stated by leader of the visiting 14-member trade delegation from Singapore and president of the Singapore-Pakistan Development Forum, Toh See Kiat while answering questions of reporters after a meeting with Smeda officials on Thursday.

"Pakistan's Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has provided a draft of the proposed agreement to us at meeting with us in Islamabad on Wednesday. We will study that draft agreement before the start of talks on the subject," he said.

Singapore has already signed FTAs with Japan, Australia and South Korea and is negotiating similar agreements with three South Asian economies - India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He said a lot room existed for cooperation between Pakistan and Singapore in the fields of agro-based industries, tyres and auto spare parts.

Earlier, the delegation leader and Smeda officials agreed during a meeting that vast scope of joint ventures between Pakistan and Singapore existed in such areas as engineering, textile, auto vending industry, fisheries, food processing, marble, gems and minerals.

Mr Kiat said the delegation had held successful meetings with the representatives of private and public sectors in Karachi and Islamabad. He said he was highly optimistic about the scope of collaboration between the two countries.

He proposed that the possibility of exchanging professional manpower like lawyers, educators, engineers and doctors between Pakistan and Singapore should also be explored. "This can be helpful in sharing valuable knowledge for the benefit of the two nations," he said.

Earlier, Smeda CEO Mr Khawaja apprised the delegation of the mandate of his organization and the main areas activities for the development of SMEs in the country. He also highlighted various sectors where there was scope for joint ventures between local and Singaporean companies.