February 22, 2006	Wednesday	Muharram 23, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The government has decided to set up a $50 million ‘Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF)’ with the active financial and technical support of the USAID and some other western countries to help improve the competitiveness of public and private sector industries in the country.

Official sources told Dawn on Monday that while the ministry of finance and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would initially be pooling $50 million, some other western countries were also expected to contribute in the CSF aimed at adequately increasing Pakistan’s exports.

The fund would help upgrade skilled manpower and emerging professionals in increasing Pakistan’s competitiveness in the international market. The CSF would support pilot projects that contribute to advance good strategy; make a sector more competitive; and help the producer and the value chain to obtain better value and better prices at each point in that chain, contributing to poverty alleviation and more income for producers.

World Competitiveness Institute (TCI) president Lars Eklund has arrived here for a 3-day visit to Pakistan to discuss with Pakistani officials the best international practices on ‘Innovation and Competitiveness’. He would also meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

When contacted, Mr Eklund said that he would also meet the government high-ups, representatives of private sector and heads of key universities to discuss the regional conference and share his views about the international best practice on innovation and competitiveness.

Mr Eklund’s visit is related to the TCI Regional Conference on Competitiveness and Economic Growth for Asia and Pacific to be held in Pakistan in May 2006. The conference is being organized by the USAID under the auspices of the TCI and the ministry of finance.

The conference, he said, was the result of the meetings of Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan during the TCI’s annual conference in Nov 2005 in Hong Kong, with the leadership of TCI who had agreed to hold a regional conference for Asia-Pacific in Pakistan (May15 to 16).

The TCI is considered to be the most significant entity in this arena as it’s an alliance of cluster practitioners and network of the competitiveness experts.