ISLAMABAD, Aug 8: Pakistan on Friday asked the World Bank to increase its annual funding from $600 million to $1 billion to finance its three strategic areas — water and power, roads and human development.

“The World Bank is our strategic development partner which has been providing us structural credits and now our goal is that funding should go up from $600 million to $1 billion per annum,” said Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Speaking at a news conference, the newly-appointed regional vice-president of the World Bank’s South Asia region, Praful C. Patel, conceded that Pakistan required enhanced assistance to achieve a 6-8 per cent growth rate but made it clear at the same time that the bank was not satisfied with the performance of Wapda and the KESC.

He said the bank reckoned that a lot of progress had been achieved in terms of pursuing the reforms agenda which had placed Pakistan ahead of other regional countries in this respect.

He hinted that the country’s annual funding from the bank could rise from $600 million to $1 billion.

The World Bank vice-president, who was given a detailed presentation by Water and Power Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao in the morning said the bank was not satisfied with the performance of power utilities — Wapda and the KESC.

When asked whether the bank was satisfied with the performance of power sector reforms, he said: “No. Nobody, not even the government in Pakistan is satisfied with the performance of power utilities”.

He said this was one area where the bank would put some proposals on the table and work with the Pakistani authorities to move forward with the reforms because this was the most critical and complex area and Pakistan’s efforts to move on to the second-generation reforms were dependent on this sector.

He said it was his first visit to Pakistan and had no detailed comments but it was important that the country should now graduate to the investment side which was the next phase of the reforms programme. He said the bank was committed to assisting Pakistan’s infrastructure development effort but the challenge was to scale up assistance to Pakistan.

He said the strategy for Pakistan outlined by President James W. Wolfensohn was that the bank should not hold back assistance and rather step up the support so that Pakistan could achieve a growth rate of 6-8 per cent in the near future which was necessary to reduce poverty.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz also agreed that a lot of effort was required to improve the power sector to a desired level because this area was critical to the success of overall reforms agenda.

He said the goal of the World Bank and the government consultations was to increase its structural reforms related to credits from $600 million a year to $1 billion.

He said the bank was Pakistan’s strategic development partner and would continue supporting its second-generation reforms in capital market, strategic infrastructure, gender programme, health and education sectors in addition to the strategic interest areas identified as power, water, roads and human development for which projects worth $1.5 billion were in the pipeline.

He said a host of assistance, both technical and financial, was required to take the capacity building programme from the federal to provincial and then district level which was crucial to the future success of reforms so that a 6-7 per cent growth was achieved to make a real dent in the poverty level.

Responding to a question, Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan would prefer to have International Development Agency (IDA) funding which had a lower interest rate but when the projects were clearly defined then the IBRD funding that had a higher price could also be considered.