ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: A 10-member US congress delegation, led by Jim Kolbe, met here on Monday Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz. The delegation leader said his country looked forward to a sustained and long-term political, economic and social relationship with Pakistan.

Mr Kolbe praised the president for taking a principled decision to support the international coalition for which Pakistan received an international acclaim.

The congressional delegation is currently visiting Pakistan to assist the economic impact of post-Sept 11 scenario. It appreciated government’s commitment to poverty alleviation, human resource development, structural and financial reforms, privatization and the fiscal discipline.

According to an announcement by the finance ministry, Aziz briefed the delegation about Pakistan’s economic policies and reform agenda.

He said the September attacks on the United States had an impact on budget of over two to three billion dollars during the current financial year. The impact was now partially off, he added.

Dilating on the social sector programme, Aziz said Pakistan was committed to fight poverty through increased allocations to education, health and human resource development. In the current financial year, increased allocations from Rs112.75 billion to Rs150 billion proved the government’s commitment to fight illiteracy and poverty. “An appropriate use of funds and institutional mechanism will be ensured for management and control of these allocations.”

Later, Zubaida Jalal, Minister for Education, briefed the delegation about quality literacy programme. She said the government’s projected budget to attain a high literacy rate between year 2001-2004 was around Rs55.5 billion.

Begum Attiya Inayatullah, Minister for Population Welfare, briefed the delegation about government efforts to remove gender disparity, control population growth and increase income of rural women to enable them to reassert their position in the society.

Similarly, the minister for labour and manpower also briefed the delegation about the government efforts to reduce incidents of poverty through community development programme and increased public sector allocations, particularly through the Khushhal Pakistan Programme.

The meeting, among others, was attended US Ambassador to Pakistan Windy Chamberlin, State Bank Governor, secretary general finance and representatives of the World Bank.