KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Friday said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was an important partner of the Sindh government in the development as it shared almost one-third of all the foreign-assisted projects in the province.

“Out of Rs28.8 billion foreign-assisted projects, the ADB’s share constitutes 31.6 per cent,” said Mr Shah in a meeting with a high profile delegation led by ADB vice president (operations), Wencai Zhang.

The other members of the delegation were; country director, Werner E. Liepach; adviser to senior vice president, Huiping Huang; and senior economist Farzana Noshab, and the chief minister was accompanied by chief secretary Siddique Memon and other senior officials.

Mr Shah said the Sindh government with the assistance of ADB had launched three significant projects, i.e., enhancing public private partnership (PPP), Sindh roads improvement project and Sindh cities improvement programme at a total cost of Rs11.945 billion.

He said that there were some promising projects like Karachi Harbour road and bridge, desalination plants, mass transit project, poverty alleviation, Keti Bunder port project, energy sector, coal and wind power and irrigation schemes in which the bank’s assistance was needed.

Mr Zhang said he had visited Karachi Port Trust and harbour area. “It is quite important to have a bridge and road connecting the harbour with the Northern Bypass and Lyari Expressway,” he said, adding, this would reduce burden of heavy and commercial traffic on the city roads.

He expressed keen interest in expediting work on the Redline rapid bus transport (RBT) system which would have a regular ride of 650,000 passengers. “We’ll not only establish the Redline project but will also finalise integration system of different RBTs for the passengers’ convenience.”

The ADB VP agreed with the chief minister that Karachi needed a latest desalination plant to meet water requirements of the city and appreciated the beginning of K-IV bulk water project but said even then Karachi needed extra water for residential and commercial purposes.

Mr Zhang said that he had visited the Port Qasim and Korangi industrial areas, which were beautiful in the sense of planning and development and important in terms of their location near highways and the sea.

He urged the Sindh government to establish another industrial corridor keeping in view the under construction China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

“You have to take maximum benefit from the project. You must design your future industrial parks and cities,” he said. On that the chief minister urged him to assist the Sindh government to envisage and work out new projects as suggested by the ADB senior official.

Mr Zhang also showed keen interest in Keti Bunder project for which the chief minister told him that it was an ancient port and still the site was fit for the construction of an international seaport.

The chief minister told him the government had approved some schemes to develop infrastructure at Keti Bunder. Mr Zhang said he would study the Keti Bunder site and hoped it would be a great opportunity for public-private partnership.

He said that he would also explore opportunities to invest in wind and solar power energy project.

The additional chief secretary (dev) briefed the delegation about the focus of Sindh government on rural development, in which there were vast opportunities to develop agro-based economy with investment in agriculture, health and energy sectors.

The Sindh government and ADB agreed to sit together next month to discuss all development opportunities and start a new partnership of developing Sindh’s urban and rural regions.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2016