ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: The visiting World Bank review mission has urged the government to increase growth, undertake more vigorous reforms in the power sector and bring the internal and external debt to a sustainable level in order to qualify for the $1 billion annual assistance.

Informed sources told Dawn that the review mission, headed by Mr Paul Vad, believed that although there were visible improvements in some sectors of the economy, Pakistan required infusion of additional resources so as to manage increased GDP growth rate, poverty alleviation and other social sector programmes.

Pakistani authorities have told the mission that it is not possible to achieve a 6-7 per cent growth rate in the next three years, especially after the recent devastating rains and floods that hit the standing crops and extensively damaged the infrastructure, particularly in Sindh, the sources said.

The mission believed that since the debt had risen because of policy failures on a broad front and over a sustained period, there was no quick-fix solution to this problem. The satisfactory tackling of this question, the mission was of the view, will take both time and aggressive policy actions.

A major concern for the bank was the failure in satisfactorily pursuing the power-sector reforms due to which the line and distribution losses of Wapda and the KESC could not be reduced.

The sources said the mission was also here to finalize a document about the state of the economy with special reference to bringing improvements in the state-sector corporations and help the private sector to adequately invest in various sectors.

Initially, a draft is being agreed upon between the two sides about the medium-term and long-term economic goals of Pakistan. After having incorporated the proposals of the government, the World Bank will finalize the new document.

The WB has also asked the Pakistani authorities to accelerate the reforms of governance and regulatory environment for power, gas, financial sector, pricing, tariff-setting and privatization.

The bank was supporting plans to strengthen the investment climate which included a combination of analytical and financial assistance targeted to reform the key sectors.

It assured to continue encouraging the federal and provincial governments to pursue the liberalization and modernization of trade, industrial, business and labour regulations.