22 May 2004	Saturday	02 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 21: Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has constituted a core group of senior officials to expedite work on effluent treatment plants in various industrial areas.

The group was constituted at a meeting on effluent treatment plants project of the Asian Development Bank here on Friday. Representatives of the ADB and federal secretaries of industries, environment and economic affairs division attended the meeting. Secretary commerce (Incharge) Yasin Tahir also participated in the meeting.

The participants thoroughly discussed the implementation status of the Industrial Efficiency and Environmental Management (IEEM) Sector Project of the ADB under which effluent treatment plants would be set up in various industrial areas.

The core group to be headed by secretary environment Javed Hasan Ali will include representatives from the finance, the economic affairs division, the commerce, the State Bank and the ADB.

This group will meet once a month and will resolve the outstanding issues by keeping the commerce minister informed on the progress of the project. The group will also decide as to who will be the executing agency of the project.

In this connection, the ADB has already offered a loan of $100m and the government is ready to act as a guarantor of this loan. The commerce minister said that his ministry was fully aware of the importance of this project and wanted it to be completed at the earliest.

He said that in the post-quota regime, non-tariff barriers such as social and environmental compliance would be the main problem faced by developing countries in export of their products. In view of this, he said the government was very serious about addressing the compliance issues.